Between the Lines of Big Bar Brawl 9

The ninth Brawl has reached its conclusion, and now, after writing over 100,000 words between it and the pre-fite show, it's time to give you a few more!

BBB9 is different from many Brawls in that I feel like I usually have a lot more details solidified earlier than I did for this one. That doesn't mean I was flying by the seat of my pants here or anything, but I usually feel like before the previous season ends I've got a good concept or theme in mind for the next one, and I think maybe that's why in the past we've had a boat brawl in Las Vegas or other strange things. Still, despite the delay in cooking up some concepts, we still did get a very detached concept from the current setting of Olympia!

Without further ado though, we'll plunge right into the section where I explain things in more direct terms.

ARENA, THEME, AND STRUCTURE

It was Winter time when things started to come together for some of these ideas, I'd say December precisely, because I think I recall the moment things formed in my head and started down the road for this year's focus on winter and fall as the arena and theme. It's been a long time since I've spent a good amount of time near snow, so moving up to Wisconsin meant more frequent exposure to it. I've never actually cared much for snowy places as a setting, and I can trace it back to things like the moments in Lord of the Rings where they're on a snowy mountain and it's just rocks and snow. Snow sort of homogenizes the environment with a big boring blanket of white...

So it's a great place for a Brawl arena! Really though, the ideas that came to me where not "this is great for an arena" so much as me thinking on how RP never really gets to touch on the winter season, and by extension the Brawl can't do themes outside of its designated days. A Christmas Brawl would be a fun concept that couldn't ever be done truly since the time of year the Brawl happens is important to the season and consistency. From there, things were forming in my brain to bring the holidays to the Brawl instead!

Pretty quickly I realized I didn't want a full on winter Brawl though. A snowy arena would be pretty plain and limiting, and people having to tromp through the piles would limit maneuverability. Ice caves and such were a good way of adding more to it, but it still was too much ice and snow, and since I knew we'd likely have people in slight clothing and things like the Funky Cops in their car who wouldn't appreciate slick roads, I quickly came to the idea it wasn't just about bringing in winter, but fall too! Splitting the arena in half with a sort of seasonal deadzone in the middle where neither is too big a presence would allow anyone to find a place, and I actually think this split was hugely beneficial. We've had arenas in the past with a few areas of interest like the beach, volcano, and forest of BBB7, but BBB9 I could very clearly envision who was on what side of the arena and plan who they'd encounter in the midst of a fite around it.

One detail I'm unsure if it ever received mention and might have got scrapped was the idea the arena would only be kept cool until the Brawl started because I was really worried people would worry about it being too cool! I later also realized maybe people would think I was doing BBB9's cold stuff for Cirno, but I only realized later that I had accidentally given my character a perfect playplace for her brawl showing. If there was anything about the Brawl arena I felt underplayed this year, it was the central lake and its frozen surface. We saw it a few times, but I feel like one big aquatic fite or something would have tipped it over, but we didn't have any Nemus or Puddlenauts around to make it happen, likely because Olympia is far less aquatic friendly than any previous setting! The ice caves, despite only feature twice really, did about as much as I'd hope, and the fall forest ended up getting a lot of play beyond expectations.

The Sahara desert addition was a joke plain and simple. I knew the floating arena idea had to be done while we're in a floating city, and while I did consider for a while if I had an idea for an arena to better match Olympia's concept, the idea of a Brawl in a false city or something doesn't feel right. Fiting between skyscrapers and such feels like it cuts up the field too much. It would work fine with a smaller brawl, but... well, if I say I don't think it'll work, I'll look stupid come BBB17 when I finally do a city-shaped arena! Really, the floating nature was my attempt to keep sci-fi around and I knew it was gonna crash somewhere, but where? Original ideas for the Brawl had the final fite involve both competitors falling over the side and having the entire finale during that drop, but the idea was scrapped before I even saw one of our final two could fly and thus invalidate that concept. Instead, the arena would of course crash at some point, and the original plan was actually to have our inexplicable third place Conductor crash the arena by gaining control of it. I had no idea how he'd do it though and it felt like I'd have to cram a lot of details in to get him flying it, and then how would he learn about doing it, and so on and so on... So Giselle ended up bringing it down, mainly because I gave her a super buff and wanted her scythe redonkulous huge to follow up on the jokes made about how big it could. What could a redonkulous huge scythe do though? Just cut someone? The big boys were gone by that time, so instead, Giselle just cuts a chunk off the arena and that brings the house down.

But still, the Sahara! I definitely thought of things like over the ocean, but I settled on a desert for the absurd contrast and minimal casualties. Putting it above a city COULD give us a top 10 in an urban, possibly scifi setting, but it would also either be a disaster for that city or require the city to be conveniently abandoned, a trope that's starting to rankle me for some reason even though I was the guy who made the RVPA to stop people from casually offing cities! Probably just a desire for a middle ground where a villain is believably attacking populated areas but not just off-screening whole populations unopposed. Choosing the Sahara in-universe came surprisingly easy because I just thought to myself, "yeah, even if it didn't crash they'd want to dump the arena somewhere after" and the world's biggest desert was a good fit. It also made me wonder why real world companies don't try and get away with putting their toxic waste and such in the desert no one wants to go to... but the answer is probably the cost of getting it over there. Desert dumping is real, but I just expected it to be more prevalent, especially since the world is kinda Anti-Sahara. I also tried to look up what was beneath the Saharan desert because of Patty's switch helmet potentially exposing something, but the sand would be deep enough that her helmet wouldn't really dig down to anything atypical or interesting.

That's all on the arena for now, time to talk about the theming! As in, how big a deal would the seasons play in Brawl constructrion/structure? Well, the moment I hit on a winter theme, even before fall was hastily added so people like me and Goops wouldn't find the arena loathsome, I wanted someone seasonally appropriate in charge. I considered Santa Claus as was the joke made in the post, but the main reason I didn't do him was not JRM's canonical distaste for him, but just my desire not to get the jolly fat man involved in the world's biggest bloodsport. I like to keep certain things sacred! Even when I used Santa in RP he was played straight as a force for good... although I did consider RPing him back in Kuwahawi! He would have still been a jolly old soul, but he'd be dressed for vacation and mostly lounging and being friendly. Dropped him there because it was mostly a joke with no follow through or way for much participation save making him a fighter in some way. After Santa though came the idea of using The Grinch instead, who we'll see later as well. The Grinch here would be his evil self but playing as a good guy, in fact, it was even considered the host would be ANNOUNCED as Santa but it would be the Grinch in his disguise. Partway through the Brawl he'd try to steal the Brawl, maybe by stealing a brawler kill or kidnapping people or something. Ruining the show somehow and getting put down for it. Not the worst idea, but half-baked and I wasn't sure I wanted another big push in of host and ancillary characters like last year again.

As I continued to ponder who else could show, I thought of the other winter holidays, and Kwanzaa came up, along with Kwanzaa-bot from Futurama. It would be deliberately silly to use him and our first real host from nowhere considering at least Swackhammer had a more reasonable connection to the Monstars of the previous year to explain his presence, but as I thought more and more on it, I started to like it more. Mainly because he'd be the perfect way to structure the pre-fite show!

MIGHT AS WELL TRANSITION TO PRE-FITE SHOW HERE!

The moment I realized Kwanzaa was a good fit for the pre-fite structure, Kwanzaa-bot was locked in. He wouldn't have much play in the Brawl itself besides a few more jokes about his lack of familiarity with the Brawl and insistence on mentioning Kwanzaa, but his time to shine would definitely be actually doing some straight up hosting and organizing the pre-fite show.

I've written on and researched Kwanzaa a few times before in my life, my fascination with things like holidays and cultural traditions drawing me back to it from time to time, but here was my chance to share that with the RP community. The 7 days of Kwanzaa and their principles were a perfect fit for a pre-fite show... if I stretched things a little. Realistically, we got 14 pre-fite show segments and we just paired a few up to make it seven instead, but there were a few old ideas on how to approach this that were scrapped. Originally, Kwanzaabot would introduce each segment while doing something with the Brawlers. We saw a few of these, like how he was there to mediate Curse and Cops, the arena segment, and the thing with Viola/Kaede/BK more directly involved him at first, with an old idea being that Kaede and BK would try and approach him to be in the pre-fite show deliberately and learn they were in it by talking to him.Having him always present limited the potential though, so instead we got to talk with him as bookends. He was actually pretty fun to write and I could see me getting more mileage out of him if I ever found reason to bring him around again.

Admittedly, most of my Kwanzaa knowledge comes from reading around online, and while I wanted to depict it and explain it as best I could, I've never celebrated it! Funnily enough, Kwanzaa-bot was decent for channeling both the knowledge and lack of experience with it, since in Futurama he seems only mildly interested in it and the joke there is people don't even know much about Kwanzaa, including him. Some of that was carried over and altered to make him knowledgeable enough to carry it out and explain things right but still have the sort of silly stretches that match his source material. In the show though he seems to like the day of Cooperative Economics, and ever since I first learned about Kwanzaa, one of my hot takes has always been that day is antithetical to both the spirit of Kwanzaa and holidays in general. It is meant to encourage you to buy and support the black community with purchases and business support... but why not do Community then? Or Cooperation? Something that isn't blatantly about purchasing things. I really do think that's part of the fact Kwanzaa was created by one man instead of a natural developing tradition and now his agenda sort of lives on through it whereas everything else the black community can better realize as they please and celebrate the days with something besides having to go out and spend cash as part of a collective identity.

Naturally, I saved the rantier version for here and the funnier version for the forum V: I also carried over an old joke I don't think I ever said out loud but have had for years in my pocket about how a black Jew for Jesus could have one hell of a December. Certain parts of this pre-fite show have been baking since high school technically! Luckily, the seven principles are broad enough I could fit many different events under their umbrellas, and the fact Cooperative Economics sticks out like a sore thumb lead to me getting it done pretty early. The train was a perfect fit for it, and the gems came surprisingly naturally rather than being something I cooked up only to fit the theme, since I did want Pitohui to be more capable than just having one gun.

I feel very dumb for slipping up and leaving Joshy and Almaric/Knud out of the posted versions of the pre-fite show. They're even there in the notes! I think it might have been because I did it at the start though so I was trying to fit the work all in one day as well as get going on the main Brawl. I do think it is the better way of doing things, pre-fite first and Brawl after since I attribute a lot of the smart grouping of the Brawl to the work put down here, but I didn't do my due diligence with the character checklist.

I was pleased a lot of the pre-fite show had purpose this time too. Even seeing Skeleton King briefly established who the Dawn team would be going after even if he was there for a gag, although it was definitely the groupings, rivalries, and character tactics that truly saw follow through. Patchy at Kalcyon's clinic might be the least impactful and one of the weirdest ones though because it shows the problems I faced with the broad terms of the principles. Something more specific like Cooperative Economics carries an easier tone, but Faith and Purpose are so similar that at times I was just putting a pre-fite idea where it could be said to make sense. Creativity came easy with the giants alliance and Dana's silly coopting of the Hot Dog Monster, and I do wonder if some of the effectiveness of the grouping this year came from how spread out the falls of members could be. Their fluid nature certainly helped too.

Figuring out who to add to the Curse was a tough one. Mr. Mucus was a guaranteed one though, never doubted him. Otherwise it was a toss-up. Hence why there were no further members! Magolor and Moltar both teased joining but had other things going on, and considering the Curse size and all, I don't think they needed too many more allies. Using well established characters would be a faux pas too rather than brawl-only guys and the like. If a Curse member went all the way perhaps there would have been more join-ups, but things like Magolor cowering before Baba seemed better than the suggested route of normal Curse membership since it gave a new group dynamic and allowed for a different group of fiters to face off early on. I did worry cutting back to Curse and Cops too often would be too much or that people would want to see Curse or Cop characters fite other fiters, but we did get that regardless with things like Plague breaking off to face Moltar and the cops getting deep enough to find new opponents.

Some things like Miyu's group meeting Sun Shang and Zhurong were very much just carrying the brawl fite into some setup rather than an idea formed more naturally. In generally though I played with alliance ideas a lot. Loose alliance seemed like a way to get Gunslinger and Eleanore into more action despite their personalities, and the titans felt like an interesting twist on the way big guys are portrayed in the Brawl. I've become very aware of Brawl tropes by now and don't resent them really, save things like how I felt bad Lupin Kaiser went down without a KO. I did try to find a KO for it in the remaining assistants but there was also a bigger commitment to keeping teams together this year since assistants should be more than sacrificial lambs to lower placing fiters... although I totally threw Daiyousei under the bus since I think Cirno would operate better without her :V

I think a lot of the pre-fite show was self-apparent or will be relevant in the character coverage though, so let's move on to the next segment!

ART, MYSTERIES, SECRETS, AND MORE

 There weren't many failed pieces of art this year, but for old time's sake there was a moon head that didn't please me as I drew it. I was generally happy with a lot of my art this year, even things that didn't look the best at least serving their role well. Strangely enough, Pitohui shooting a downed Hank in the head was one of the hardest to draw, partly because I had no good frame of reference for doing it while still showing both characters well enough so it was readable. Rather than moving onto another picture like I did with Mac here though, I kept erasing and retooling it and still am not happy with how it looks. I did like many of the Komachi pics I did though, even the one where her head is an orb more because it looks like a style rather than weirdness.

 The only other failed piece of art was this start of Vahni's death, where I tried to draw all of Jason-3 for the solar panel roast. I wasn't sure how to pose it right to have Vahni clear and Jason-3's details so I stopped and crossed it out before I got too far in it.

Other art details involve the first new Brawl artist in a while! As Baba put on the crown, I got my five year old niece Mia to draw it going crazy. It was a simple concept and one she couldn't mess up, and with her ipad she just drew a mess of colors and I showed her Baba so she could draw him on top. The black eyes felt like the only vital part to make its shape and all a bit clearer, because otherwise I didn't mind she gave it weird leg placement and all. It was definitely art for the sake of novelty rather than something vital, but she was very happy to contribute when she heard I wanted help with my "work" :V CKR did her art while she's off in Austin, hence the blue tint from her taking photos of it instead of scanning, and I think she was rushed this year since she's in summer classes and needed to do a lot of homework. Goofy smile Wrexer is great as is her Kisha pic and the way she drew Patty though. That Patty pic is better than I dared to dream! RainbowDash of course went all out on her RD pic, but since she only did 8 of the 10 I told her to do, her art output was limited. She of course had excuses for putting it off, but she does work and she was trying to spend time with Mia before my niece went back to Texas, so I'm happy for what we got and the two pics I had to do instead weren't a big problem. It's a bit surprising looking back that BBB1 art put me out so much I had to call both my sisters in to help, but I think the timeframe for the Brawl work has been worked out pretty well. I instantly forget what I write in this blogs after making them but I do feel the magic formula is within grasp, especially since I went with the "write five posts a day" approach to brawl work instead of what I think used to be a 10 KOs a day approach that didn't account for when posts started or ended. That might also lead to better cohesion!

There were 39 posts total this year and I think all of them gave proper breathing room to their battles. Not all were as long as the others but I don't feel I rushed any KOs or dragged any out too long. I will share with you now though the titles as they appear in my Brawl notes! They were definitely functional instead of interesting though, and some were just there since I needed titles. Some aren't even indicative of the post very much! Good luck figuring out what went on in some of these :V

Brawl Starts
Brawl ACTUALLY Starts!
More train and faction fights
Prearranged Problems
Argyris Squabbles
Big Guy Surprise
Sign me up for Triple Deaths
Freeze and Funk
Murder? Yeah Sure!
Snipes and Ambushes
Weird Deaths
Titan Fite Focus
Roped Into Things
Holey Moly
What Are These Guys Up To?
Mutual Murder
Pokemon Deaths
Weird and Regular
Well Well Well Del (double Del deaths here)
Lupin Megazord
Plague Kills Someone!
No Question
Dorks Can Die (this was the post where Robin and Vince die! One of the better named ones I feel)
Death Keeps Happening
Reap What You Sow
Rainbow Joy
Magic and Such
Dino Time
Dawn's Team is Split (even though it was split much earlier! Another sign of shifting ideas)
Train's Gone, Cloud
Some Ladies Lose Their Lives
The Curse Falls
Cool Ladies, One Literal (that being Cirno and a brinechar)
Pushing Your Luck
Top... 9? Sure! (I usually try to evenly get to a Top 10, not this year!)
Magic and Guns
Final Four
Finale
Epilogue

One thing about this years sticky notes in general though was a lot more vagueness on my part. I was giving myself more wiggle room than I have in the past for determining KOs as I write and fleshing out the pre-fite shows not on details in the notes but characters I had plans for. That might be why two slipped through the net honestly, but the Brawl itself gave me more room to experiment and get more characters involved when the notes didn't really bind me into a final result for many kills. I also think I did a decent job of not letting characters fall out of the spotlight too long.


The character notes only had a few silly things in them, since they're mostly either functional or links to pastebins to copies of long ability lists and such that I pulled open when the character was doing stuff. Interesting stuff does include "Cirno: Cirno Stuff", height being surprisingly important to my writing this year and hence my comment on Eleanore "6'10''! Damn!, Hot Dog Monster only having "yup", referring to Magolor as "magic crown having ass" for some reason, "Elvis Impersonator sure is here". Vahni probably has the longest section excluding pastebin use because I included the audio cues even though those are the kinds of things often left to the side to speed up Brawl pace, but she did say many lines despite that!

Also, here's the sticky note picture from this year!

Looping back for a bit, Gooper wasn't mentioned in the art section! The cards were a nice touch that works even outside the context of the Brawl and taught me stuff like Giselle is from something and not isolated art! I do feel bad continuing to hoist the title card duties onto him, and I continue to dream of me taking up the reins of it again, but he does an excellent job every time so its more feeling bad for the burden than something like dissatisfaction! While there were definitely some art highlights from my sisters like Chompette's face, the crazy looking magic baby, and Wrexer by CKR, I still think the art Gooper did of Sonia's attack on the Wicked Witch is some of the best the Brawl has ever seen.

In fact, here it is again!

As I was writing the scene I realized how epic it was turning out. It was already meant to be a big thing for Sonia due to her ties to the Wicked Witch of the West name, something I only keened on when I searched the forum for previous mentions of the witch, but it also came to be a lot more as I added more fiters to the scene and gave the whole thing more stakes and gravitas. Having these characters who might not ever interact again all lined up ready to attack is much better than the version we'd have otherwise where like, it would just be the witch death picture. The whole magic speech ended up becoming more than expected too as I realized her just trying to make witches look good could have broader applications for the whole Olympia Hates Magic thing, but I didn't want to directly address it either since Sonia doesn't seem to have a horse in that race in RP yet. Plus, we might just overlook the message entirely in RP, making it less meaningful!

Gooper told me he wanted to draw it and would do his best to do so and would kick himself if the Brawl champion is in it and he didn't draw it. I knew I had to let him complete it then, even though he predicted it would take down a godbeast or Plague going wild. In general though, chaos and the interconnectivity of battles in a Brawl was the focus this year, with even things like Baba is Godbeast only getting a minor focus compared to how some godbeasts have been depicted. Having the Chaos Goddess at the head of a strange group of fiters was only fitting for a Brawl like this. Goops had some other great art too of course! I do wish he had the time for Moltar and Plague doing a riff on the Space Ghost gif but it does seem like it would be harder than you expect and everyone got the reference anyway! The weirder part really was that people thought it was somehow not intentional. Why would I ask him to draw them punching otherwise?:V  The struggle usually is to find him spoiler free stuff, hence why we didn't get Robbie dressed as Plague for what could be a good gooppic, but things like Jigglypuff's concert were beautiful and really show why I still cherish the art he provides even if he can't do KOs. He said he would if necessary, but I still like to avoid cashing certain checks until absolutely necessary!

Lotto! I should mention that! Yeah, it was definitely intended to be a real lotto at first. We've had real lottos despite my reputation, BBB2 had one character picked, and the colored lottos of BBB6 only had one character picked from the losing lotto, but I was worried there would be too many characters and I would be unable to write everything in time if I just gave a flat fifth slot. People were more reserved in using the lotto slot than expected, my sisters even avoiding it mainly because they had trouble in general with entrants this year, but if there had been too many, I would have likely not done full integration. I went from thinking "just one" at the start to "just a few" until the numbers got high, and I thought maybe half? But I couldn't split the numbers in a way that didn't feel unfair or artificial, and seeing this Brawl wasn't too much bigger than an old one put me over on including everyone! I don't regret it, things worked out great!

This section was meant to mention Mysteries and Secrets too, right? Let's talk about them! The Mystery Fiter this year was very hard to pick. I wanted something related to winter or fall, and as such, many characters came to mind but none were ever really the perfect fit I was hoping for. For a while, the Bumble and Yukon Cornelius from the Rudolph movies were it, they were even going to appear from the Ice Caves! The metal boxes just didn't seem like a good fit this year so I'm retiring that weird old tradition and now just doing what works best, and giving our ref's gimmicks a bit of a show for the reveal this year worked well enough. I would have had the witch fly in with a tornado and a house... if she was the witch of the EAST, who is the one who did all that. I had to really dig to figure out Wicked Witch of the West's potential powers, and yet, I only used the ones I had already expected to use! At most, the black smoke was from research, everything else like the poppies, flying monkeys, and so on came from what I remembered. She is powerful no doubt and had a lot to draw on at least, but I was worried at first she wouldn't be a good pick. She's the first female oddly enough to get the role, something I've noticed was lacking for a while but I never had a good pick before, and when I decided I wanted a witch, I was trying to find a Halloween related one! ...Maybe I could have done the Scary Godmother? :V Nah, she's recognizable and has a good toolbag, so I don't regret the Wizard of Oz witch.

However, she was still a late arrival to considerations. I considered The Grinch as well, except he'd be his Grinch Night version so he could have his weird cart of horrors and represent Halloween and Christmas simultaneously. I considered the Miser Brothers funnily enough, but also considered characters from Nightmare Before Christmas like Oogie Boogie to again try and play into the split-between-seasons theme. I almost used the Drak Pack from Hannah Barbera cartoons so I could easily capture the halloween mood with a vampire, werewolf, and frankenstein all at once, but I worried they wouldn't be received well since they're sorta obscure. Witch Hazel from Looney Tunes was also considered but she definitely was just a pull since I remember having a WONDERFUL Looney Tunes or Martian or something pick that tied to Marvin the Martian being the ref and using his connections to get them to join... and I just can't remember who it was anymore. Witch Hazel was a weak attempt to keep that idea around. I feel like there were many instances of me thinking "THAT'S PERFECT" when an idea hit me while in bed at night, assuring myself I'll remember... and then forgetting.

I tried the Christmas, Halloween, or season angle with so many ideas and never solidified any, and when WW of the W came to mind and I became attached to the idea, I was worried it wasn't truly on brand enough to excuse... then I remembered that only the Green Giant in the advertising Brawl and Flying Dutchman in the boat brawl could really be called on brand. Hell, I brought a boat to an underwater fite with Noah! That gave me the confidence needed to lock her in, and I did so before season start at least because I was mildly concerned when Cornwind referenced Oz in a post of his.

Needless to say, when I saw the Miser Brothers pop up as Secret Fiter suggestions as well, I wasn't surprised. Draco had done it shortly after I linked a video of theirs back in December, and when Sheep came along and arrived to the same idea independently, it was like fate wanted these guys in the Brawl. Then when the tractor picked them, I guess that really was fate! I did a random coin flip in chatzy one day to determine which brother went to which user, although since they didn't win I guess that wasn't too important, but if they had, the idea was if and probably when they made it to the end together, they'd then squabble for top spot to determine the winning user. I even considered splitting them into something like Secret and Unknown fiters to deal with this, but it didn't seem relevant to do so, but it would have got us 80 fiters totaly if I had! There were some other great Secret Fiters I would have loved to see but whose names I'm keeping close to my chest in case the Secret Fiter Scuffle draws them in and their user wants a big reveal, but SK's in particular was high up on my wanted list of the pool and Cornwind had a very silly and fun choice too. Funnily enough, they both had Secret Fiters get in before, and thanks to sheep, this is the first repeat secret fiter picker getting their choice in. Draco also picking them makes it weird though, but I'm glad the oddity was rewarded by the tractor. I might have to do something if it somehow happens AGAIN but considering the idea seemed to just be in our nebulous subconscious I couldn't hold the allignment against people. I did have an idea for getting a few Secret Fiters in by way of Llarness transforming into the ones Gooper and Pitohui submitted, but the idea slipped my mind until it was too late, and while I considered swapping out Llarness forms to make it still happen, I didn't want to tear down the work from before and potentially introduce problems with a sloppy swap out. As for other Secret Fiters... invasions just never came to mind really! Maybe I should have had some as Curse helpers... too late now unfortunately.

Original version of their involvement in the Brawl had them splitting up the ice and fire fiters and making them face off as their reps, perhaps with ice and fire turning against the brothers and joining up, but then I came up with the ideas for the Argyris Sisters takedown and other things that made them more just a constant nuisance in the Brawl than a devastating force that drew lines in the sand for other fiters. Sheep mentioned Mother Nature in his submission and I considered having her drop by, but I couldn't find a good entry point for their early exit, and in general, the focus this brawl was on making the characters work together better rather than injecting outside influences. I think I'll be more confident in the future with invaders now that I have pulled the Brawl away from what is sometimes essentially one-on-one fites in proximity of each other. Fun fact though: I had wondered if the Miser Brothers were fit for regular RP at one time. I just felt like they would get into RP one day and I wondered if I had the ideas to make them happen, but besides meeting Mother Nature to wrap up their squabbling, it was never more than a passing idea. I do wonder if SK was serious about a Snow Miser plot :V That would just be another on the pile for their inevitable appearance in RP. Also for some reason I kept wanting to call Snow Miser by the name Freeze Miser instead.

Funnily enough, whereas in previous years I had something to mention when it came to breaks between Brawlwork, there wasn't anything like Kill la Kill, Pokemon Picross, Jurassic World Evolution Videos, or anything like that this year. I just set 5 posts a day and did them with breaks being what I wanted. Didn't play any games during that span and had Game Hoard work far ahead of schedule done just in case, but if there was anything that helped me entertainmentwise, it was having a lot of Relaxing Video Game music compilations on Youtube to listen to while I work. It's already what I listen to during Game Hoard writing so this just was pretty much an extension of it, something to keep the world not too quiet while I'm writing.

I've gone this long without mentioning our champion! We'll cover her more in the character section of course, but I thought I'd say Komachi is a wonderful champion. I didn't expect her at all, even though I voted for her. I just liked the character, and honestly, I didn't expect any of my votes to win! This was my first year allowing myself to vote since everyone seemed fine with it, and I tried to stick to the characters I liked or wanted to support, although there were many like Viola, the Triplets, BK, Cerato, and so on I couldn't find space for. Might've effort posted if I hadn't come up with Me Voting so close to voting end times. I usually have a prediction for winning the Brawl though, and this year I figured it would be a repeat user champion, since I felt like we've been too lucky for too long and I just wanted the anniversary brawl next year to have a new one and would take a repeat this year if that convinced the tractor to give me that. I was shocked to see Komachi at the top, even throwing up my hands and saying "OKAY!" Bree definitely deserves a win and its one of her three best characters getting it, I just hadn't even though of Bree winning since perhaps last time Amity entered. Maybe old blogs say different? I don't know!

Planning the final fite was difficult though. I wanted some flashy new stuff and both girls were going to have to make it far on small kits. I loaded Patty down with guns to compensate, but mostly I held onto a power each to make sure something big and drastic could be whipped out to inject life into their skirmish. We weren't just seeing them fite the same anymore, and things like the switching and distance manipulation gave the fite a unique feel compared to previous battles. I did wonder if I should start adding death tolls to Disaster Moments like the arena fall or Rainbow Dash's hurricane, but the thing with those is they are often at the start of posts to push new action. Dawn uses the fall to her advantage and Giselle and Sonia had a fite in the fall, but there hasn't been direct cause of death. It would probably need the right lead-in.


Not counting the cards, we had 101 images this year, and I don't know why the number of art always seems to be pretty much right on 100 or close enough. We've had the most brawlers ever but previous brawls still had around the same amount, and I literally did not trim any image ideas this year! Technically with finding different Kwanzaa-bot poses for the pre-fite show and editing a kinara clipart we do have more, but that's cheating! In fact, I almost used Lupin Kaiser official imagery instead of a hand-drawn one when I was worried about the workload, but the last piece of art I drew was Lupin Kaiser just as a TAKE THAT to me for doubting myself. We do have another cool piece of Behind the Brawl stuff never before seen in a blogpost here though, so let me show you something only my sisters and I usually get to see:

You may need to increase its size.

But this, dear reader, is a scan of the art requests I sent CKR! Since she's off in Texas, these art requests that usually exist only in physical form and tend to get crossed out or otherwise marked during the drawing process were pristine stored as an image I sent her. There's a separate Google Doc with characters images and details like that Wrexer had no human arms, but these are the basics and the general poses I expected. Gotta keep them simple or else why not draw it myself, but you can expect RainbowDash's to look similar even though she crossed her art requests out with dark marker after she was done. You also get to see my awful handwriting! They can somehow read it these days without question.

I feel like most other details will naturally arise in the character-focused sections, but before we move on, let's get out that Big Bar Brawl Wishlist and update it for the new year and removed names! Some unexpected removals this year like Robin, and in general I felt the Brawl cast was very solid, with me being pretty warm on most entrants rather than having a freakout character like Baby Winston or Tit.

BRAWL WISHLIST
SPY 
GOBLIN REF FROM BLOOD BOWL (nah, you good now)
HARPY
Xavier
Stella
Garnet
Hansel
Frankie
Oboro
Cindy
Kirby
Dashra
Erin
IVEL
Deekin
BRINE
Etch
Morgana
Eshe
Eva
Rory
Euryale
Kayle
Famine
Trace
Rin
Iodine
BREE
Lord Puddington
Sakuya
Sonia
GOOPERBLOOPER
Baltan/Kauket
Sheryl
Gamble Man
Junko
Tron Bonne
DJ Candy
Huge Hermit
X Demolition
Sakura Atari
Samhain
Beheeyem
 Xyra (why not :V)
Piper (WHY NOT :V)
RUBYCHAO
Josuke
Hibiki
JesterChao
Corporal Guy (w/Axem Blue)
Mizuki
Jake Marshall
Tom Turbine
Otto and Herman
Kotohime
STEELKOMODO
Daniel
Big Bobby
Chatalie
Rain
Shinobiman
Katsu
Stanley
Alex the Raptor
Wiz and Boomstick
Carol
MLG Toon Link
CORNWIND EVIL
Bluejay
Chastity
Charlie
DELETER
Bubs
Jackson Howard
Krieg
DRACO
Parsee
Zakos
Vina or Rebecca Sealander
Flu
Rampage Monsters
Drachen Sisters in Some Capacity
Cloak/Goggles/Armor
Malizza
M SHEEP
Drip
Eleven Thirty 
Basu

Just like in the past, these are more characters I want to see and haven't seen yet rather than the only ones I would pick from your lineups. Some I've even removed because of what people said or plan to do with them, and quite a few like Piper and Xyra are more me showing I like a character while they're fresh even if they might not stick around long or have crazy powers. I don't want to just add every fite capable character to this after all, but if you are searching for a name or two come next Brawl, maybe this will give you some ideas! I definitely feel like I've left off some obvious ones... so maybe mention them in the comments so I can squeeze them in!

I do believe that does it for the general Brawl information and behind the scenes... so now, the moment you've been waiting for or skipped ahead to: CHARACTERS!

CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS
 Here's the spot where I'll talk about all 79 lovely fiters who gave their lives for our entertainment! If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned big alliances in depth like Curse and ZFPD and all, it's because they'll no doubt crop up here while I'm writing! I'll be sorting characters by user like last year, so let's go ahead and start with our new champion user, Bree!

BREE
 KOMACHI! Definitely one of my favorite Bree chars but still definitely a surprise winner. As mentioned elsewhere, I held onto her distance manipulation specifically so that there could be something flashy for the big finale, but I was worried people would think me saying "she's been doing it subtly this whole time!" wouldn't fly. Komachi is noted for being horrendously slow though and it was basically in my back pocket as my explanation for why I didn't have her basically loafing around. I remembered her performance in the Consolation Brawl and how Bree was worried she was TOO sleepy, so I made sure that even though she started asleep on the train, she would keep moving after that. She sort of drifted in and out of focus, and trying to give the champ stuff to do without overemphasizing them too early and being supsicious is always a delicate balance. The chaos of the Brawl definitely helped her out this time though. Weaving in and out of teams and conflicts, she was able to do stuff without it being clear she was being pushed, and besides, there are a few other characters who seemed like they were getting pushed around the same. Magnolia even shared a team attack with Komachi! But Magnolia dropped after being a repeated presence. I did avoid having Komachi use any of her fighting game moves despite considering them. All of her attacks here have some root in RP, and I actually might have forgot distance manipulation existed if not for me doing independent research on her RP stuff to make sure she's got other skills. Komachi really doesn't have a full RP movelist anywhere, it's just kinda split into things like her RYM appearance, regular RP, and a few fites. Another important detail made was that Komachi was only using lost souls of the Sahara for attacks and not Brawler souls or people who should be at peace. I wasn't sure if it was in Komachi's character to use souls of people she knew as weapons, but calling in randos for assistance fits older behavior and she sends them off at the end. Same goes for not killing the owls, as since she was in charge of that situation, I decided to let them live. Maybe someone else would have killed them! I did sort of fall back on the scythe for KOs though, even though I usually try to have a character mix things up. I feel like I could have got more use out of her boat generation, but she'll be back next year so some untouched or underutilized aspects can still find their footing! Naturally, how well a magical body said to be super hard to kill holds up was a concern, and I trimmed away some potential damage just in case. We've had brawlers fite without legs and other stuff, but at some point Komachi would break apart from the damage and I didn't want it to feel like she ever reached the point she should. Moving on from the champ, we'll touch on BULK BICEPS next. When it was looking dire for Rainbow Dash's chance on being in the Brawl, I shared a silly image I found in chat and Bree seized on it for a great joke of an impersonator entering the Brawl as her! ...Then RainbowDash woke up and entered her guys. The joke was definitely in the sign-ups and wouldn't have the potential follow through it could have with Rainbow Dash actually absent, especially since they were now essentially working together. I still love the humor in it, but we were left with little room to make use of it, especially with his low placement. Things like a dumb character not telling them apart never came up sadly, and Bulk's muscles didn't get as much play as they could have. I feel like another pass with him out of his suit would let me emphasize him more, since I did feel like the suit kinda held him back from doing crazy muscle pony stuff. He'd probably end up helping Rainbow if he did come back, but he could get in a few more licks since he wouldn't have to be stripped first. Maybe in the right place the costume could have done more too, like if I somehow justified getting him in a tight space like the train. I kept wanting to call him Buff Biceps even though I've seen the show and know his personality and all, although I stopped watching MLP a while back so I have no clue if he's been further developed. I was pretty proud of my Bulk Biceps picture though! Ponies can be hard to draw oddly enough, but I think being a caricature body type made it easier to work on things like his face and form whereas the wrong eye size for Rainbow Dash can throw off the whole look. REN who I never called Renata once in the Brawl even though its the middle name of my brother's wife, the idea to put her in an Undercity trio was quick to come to me, but she perhaps got more play out of it. Helping Aiko and Giselle kept her active until her role escalated, fiting Fay and getting vampirized splitting her away to do her own things. With a grabbag of psychic powers, sometimes you gotta ask "is she gonna make psychic shards or psychic katanas, and would she choose one option really just for the sake of variety for the reader?" Renata is definitely very powerful on her own, and in the prototype Hellcow encounter she wasn't even present, the vampirism coming as a spark when I threw her into it during the writing process. She already had a good angle in RP going thanks to the cop drama, but adding a bit of vampirism felt like it could enhance her too, especially since she's already an edgy loner and being a vampire feels like the perfect thing for one of those :V Her placement rankings-wise definitely influenced her path through the Brawl, she wouldn't have been vampirized if she got lower, she'd have probably gone down in a teamfite her undercity trio wound up in. Mostly though, Ren thoughts during Brawl writing focused on trying to think of how to use her incredible psychic strength well while still remembering she was packing weapons. I don't think anyone expected her to match Caprice's impressive run, but I'm glad she didn't flop either. Lastly, we got JINX. I knew of her before the Brawl of course, I think she had some character video pick up traction a while back and know your meme shared it so I watched it, but I couldn't tell you much about her til now! A force for chaos is always good in a Brawl, and blowing stuff up is always fun! I waffled on the weapons she got away with, weapon limit has always been a bit iffy in the bar brawl, but it worked out I feel where she wasn't overpowered. I'd generally avoid things where someone has to put a weapon away to use the other though. She was definitely good for getting more weapons in the hands of other Brawlers like Patty and Blasto though! Kinda bit her team in the butt that she brought them all honestly :V I didn't really show her passive much, it's one of those things you just have to assume is doing its thing because you can't pull over and go "her recent kill gives her 1.125 speed increase!" Blasto had to be the one to kill her, I feel, since they're pretty much their team's versions of each other. One blasts for good reasons, the other for... well, she does them because they're fun! I didn't factor in her bounty at all when I arranged the kills in the planning stage of the Brawl. If there's something I could have used more from her kit it was Zap, the stun gun. Every other weapon certainly got put through its paces even after Jinx was down. I did wonder when I saw she was doing pre-brawl stuff, but since she's gone now too she's in a weird spot not many brawlers have been. Appeared for Brawl, appeared in RP some, and is now gone after Brawl. It was a nifty idea for another entrant that fits in the lore of this season with her Curse membership. Every Brawler has some legacy, but she's got even more of one now!

GOOPER BLOOPER
Coming in at number two this Brawl was Gooper's PATTY WAGON who I never called Patricia at like any point. I was pretty bad with names like Patty and Ren this year in that I just kept using the nickname, but that's not really a bad thing so much as me not taking the usual options I take. Gendarmor was a good pick for Patty's weapon and shored up the cop alliance after so many went down so early, but it did leave me in a pickle when it came to making her useful after Gendarmor went down. Gendarmor's death was difficult to place as I wasn't sure where to put it really with Patty going all the way to top two, but I think he put in work before he went down and Patty was never really a slouch even with him around. That was due in part to making sure she was still contributing a lot, and when she was on her own, she started to accumulate weapons to stay competitive. Finding moments for the siren helmet was difficult as I considered things like how it works in the games. When objects switch back into reality in Mighty Switch Force, they can kill enemies but also launch Patty at the screen as if they were pushing back in, but then the enemies don't do that! At the same time, these objects in our reality aren't blocks or things like that, so how they come back into existence is a bit more complicated. How would sand reenter since its millions of fine grains? How would the ice reappear, or the trees of the forest? A sort of On/Off was the easiest way of doing it and it seemed to match previous uses of it in RP well enough. I didn't have anything previously unknown appear during the switches though like new blocks, mainly because I had a lot of fun switching the nature in and out instead. Gendarmor did use his shoulder mounted rockets early, but I figured if they're fiting the Curse right out the get go they wouldn't really hold back much. An early kill gives them early ground! While she did become a gun fiter pretty quickly, I still wanted to give her physical power some dues, and the thighsphyxiation pic was both beautifully drawn by CKR, made sense as an attack, and gave her a physical kill to balance out how much she'd use things like Moltar's gun later down the line. It's kind of funny when you consider just how many Brawlers continued on in spirit thanks to her using their stuff. The donut weakness almost didn't get any inclusion, but with Robbie so high a stray thought blossomed. Brawlers really do must have problems like hunger and needing to use the restroom, although I've always been iffy on how long the Brawl is in-universe compared to reality. Ultimately I am glad cops came out higher in the ranking than Curse. I love the Curse plot and it's drawing a lot of cooperation and creativity out of people, but they're also bad guys who will probably will be mostly dead or gone later this year and I'm not sure Curse superiority would necessarily have a positive effect on RP. Sure, Komachi would still kill a second place Plague and win over him, but the message would still be they trounced the police and did amazingly and many characters might be bummed. I guess I wouldn't have truly minded much, but the cop win is preferable, especially since this seems to be giving Patty some love whereas Plague was bound to be big this season! Oh yeah, PLAGUE is basically getting mentioned enough for this to be his section of the Goop section! I literally have no idea how I'd handle a win from him, epilogue would probably be easy with some big celebration from the Curse that didn't really show any of their bad side, just them having a kickass party or the like and Plague doing a FIRST THE BRAWL, NEXT ALL OF OLYMPIA kinda dealy. I definitely leaned on the nanomachines perhaps harder than Gooper intended, but one thing I've always had in my mind if I think I'm going too far is "this is the Brawl, if these can be pushed to their limits, it will probably be done here." I even made sure during the Blasto showdown it was explicitly said the nanomachines were overclocked and sometimes not mentioning injuries too specifically allows you to get away with more of them! The hole through Plague from Moltar's shot is probably the most iffy I am on if I maybe was a little too silly with it. I knew I wanted Shrapnel to storm in and invade, and they were a lot like weapon delivery for our final Curse fiters while also putting more grounded real world weaponry down in the arena for someone like Patty to scoop up. They were kinda made to be The Curse's warm bodies for goon sweeps,, but I didn't want to do that fully, so they did fix the Plague tank and helped keep cops at bay, but they died when it counted like against Moltar. They were actually really good for making Moltar and Plague fite because I worried for a bit they really wouldn't end up in battle if Plague tried to recruit Moltar midbrawl and got a "maybe later". Plague himself, the tank was definitely a focal point of the early battles, and while it was a user injuring their own character, the idea of the tree swap was too fun not to use, and using it to take out the tank's main weapon not only made Plague able to get in closer and battle more without having a huge explosive option I couldn't accommodate as easily in a firefight, but it was a fun use of the swap in general! I did want him to fite out of it though, and ultimately, his killer ended up Blasto mostly because there were no other cops left besides Patty and I didn't want full on KO by a Goopchar, but still felt capping the Curse leader had to be a cop. Blasto needed kills to make his high placement feel more earned too so that's how we got there. Another big thing I did was try to make sure Plague was pretty sympathetic and friendly without ever pulling punches, hence things like stopping to spare Mr. Mucus being roadkill and doing cute things like hugging the tank before it met its demise. Sometimes I do worry about big grudges in a Brawl being too centralizing, and maybe people would have liked to see Curse and Cops branch out and fite more regular opponents at times, but I tried to mix in other fiters like Rennie, Robin, Magnolia, Moltar, and so on to give that without either side going "yeah, we're done for now randomly, see you later!" It helps that when a Brawl is big enough you can spend some time apart from it. VIOLA finally getting in the Brawl was great, and I was worried for a while she might fade in the back for too long. Trying to be spooky means lurking and such, but Brawl chaos gave her some moments before her death thankfully. Spooking someone to death was definitely an angle I wanted to try though, hence how she dealt with BK. The pre-fite setup was sort of to help her justify trying to terrify the little raccoon so much. He's a cute animal despite his personality, but she had seen his behavior and all and she did deserve a moment where her spook factor was full to play into her chosen angle. I did have to edit the Brawl at one point though. I just assumed Gourgeist had Vine Whip and I was wrong! It makes sense in retrospect, but so many grass types have it with no visible vines so it felt natural. Having the fire moves made Gourgeist interesting beyond just being a plant, and the ghost stuff made it more mobile than a pumpkin should be. I did wish I found a spot for moves like Trick-or-Treat turning someone ghostly, but that almost feels more like a buff and Viola was mostly a lone fiter who intersects with others when convenient, Kaede being her closest ally technically. The durability was fun for a joke, but it did make me wonder how to kill her. Thankfully, fire gets around a lot of durability questions! Unless you're fireproof. Naturally, I killed her alongside Gourgeist because Viola couldn't do too much without it. She might be able to support Kaede or something and would have found the vampire stuff nifty, but it would have made her eventual defeat a bit less personal and well fought for her. She did make me wonder about the rule with Pokemon trainers only being allowed one Pokemon, but considering how often RainbowDash and others have entered just a single Pokemon and they've done well, it makes sense, it just means I don't get more playthings. MORGAN AND LILY are up next on Nick Jr. despite being lewd as hell. Their butt bumps were probably the thing I wondered about including the most, hence why when they finally showed, it was on Cirno, a character from a user who I knew wouldn't mind the ass-ault because it was me :V It wasn't like the booties killed either, but the Electric Screw did see play outside of its finisher use. I understand finishers are often justified as exhausting or requiring a lot of power to prevent them from doing the attack often, but it still felt like crippling Lupin Kaiser warranted a mega attack right out the bat. I never used their nightmare ability specifically because I am wary of death flag abilities. Some like Vahni's Ultimate Golf Works appear so early to throw you off, others like this dark spell never see the light of day. Besides, the sisters would probably need to be higher up to really make a big use of it, so only the reference as a possible way to escape Dawn came up, although that was almost them just readying electricity before I realized I had a better implication to make. Speaking of implications, the sisters really didn't put their charms on many people. It was used as a battle tactic once, but Sonia's alliance had such a pull that they weren't really lacking for allies much, and characters like Robin or Cyrus who Morgan could have swung for never had reason to drift towards them. Their goddess powers were perhaps too much fun compared to the succubus defaults anyway, although I did often waver on how far to go with things. I probably stretched both the flower powers and party powers a bit to make them more interesting in battle, and there were definitely moments I stopped writing and had my mind explode with potentials for the Party Powers... or searching desperately for a party power that could actually help! Thinking through the Party City aisles doesn't really give you too many violent options. I did definitely want to use things like the vacuum tail, and having the Zapp necklace in a succubus seemed like fun, although I didn't want to overdo the hip shaking for random weather either since she still had powers to work through. Also, girl needs a break! Can't shake your moneymaker all day! I definitely feel like they got a lot of play as a main fixture in Sonia's alliance but the specific actions that more worked towards who they are rather than what they were part of took a while to appear. Lastly, we have DANA and wow was she fun to write! I think even when playing the Valhalla game I thought she would be. Over the top and funny while still being a badass really let me do some great stuff with her. The whole train stuff at the beginning headed by her had some of my favorite lines and silliness, especially with her being on the Hot Dog Monster for its brief  tenure in the Brawl giving it more of an identity than rampaging hot dog creature. The line about Captain Marvel actually came after I realized I was about to have her punch an old lady on a train and it was too perfect to leave out, although I would never have had her actually do it. This is a Brawl where you have to kill everyone as Cyrus later says, but I can still keep many characters out of morally dubious actions most the time. While she did have a Mega Man arm and metal bat and all, I feel like Dana's personality was my guiding force for her Brawl involvement. If you're wondering why she ended up killing Cyrus though, well... the idea of the Jock killing the Nerd came to me :V Now that I think on it though, Zankantou really could have got more play, but it sort of falls into one of those "if she's mentioned generically fiting somewhere, she's probably using it" deals. All in all, a very solid cast from Goops. Patty and Plague were leading two alliances, the Succubi were in another, and Dana and Viola were both fun with their things, Dana even heading another small alliance I made for her! The Meat Lover's alliance was mostly just me keening that Hot Dog Monster would be a perfect goofy ride for her and moving on from there. How would she meet the monster? Well it was picking on Meat Boy! Wait, Magnolia works for Dana, so she'd clearly agree to help her too! And bam, alliance made. Didn't really come up with many official alliance names for the ones being made by me though Meat Lover's just a joke really and some like Eleanore's team just a bit too disparate to have a unifying name.

SPY/PERSON MAN/ANKOKU/ ETC.
We have to talk about THE CONDUCTOR in the room. Wowee zowee was that quite the random run! It was pretty fortuitous that Spy streamed that mod of him, not so much that it gave him any points for effort since I made sure to emphasize they didn't after I saw his placement, but it gave me a good first look at the mad bird and let me better color the character's behavior in the Brawl. Already The Owl Express was either gonna be a big deal or something that got decimated early, but it filled so many roles so well it was hard to figure out when to get rid of it. I think I had a few planned points for it going down until I settled on the Wrexer kamikaze, but after the train was gone it would be hard to keep him in the game. Originally, The Conductor would find some way to take control of the arena and be the one responsible for bringing it down. In fact, he wouldn't do the arena crash until near the end of the Brawl, denying us some of our time playing in the sand. When I went away from that idea I worried for a bit we wouldn't have a way to crash the place! The Owl Express certainly risks crossing into that "going overboard" territory where a character brings something just too absurd to the Brawl, but I think if we got like, one character only doing something this big it's okay. Not everyone can be moving trains around the arena after all! I bet if I played Hat in Time it would be closer to its in game version although I did look into it some, but I think it had to be adjusted a bit to be more realistic in RP anyway. The angle he was making a movie didn't come up much because you aren't supposed to say you're in one when you're in a movie, but he did do things like get on the train as part of it! I worried about referencing the rival penguin movie producer for the Daipenmon topple but I usually try to make things explain themselves in Brawl when that's a concern. Also, for the voice, I did just basically use Scrooge McDuck as reference, I bet I even cribbed a line or two from ol' McDuck since angry Scot behavior is pretty similar. I did incorporate the Peck Necks of course per memeage, and I did listen to a load of Conductor voice clips to avoid just being full on McDuck and making sure he did say things like "wee" for small even though that felt obvious. Maybe I could have done those "nae" things written Scots do, but I've never understood them really! I listen to Scottish voices and don't really hear that much meself! ACH! Moving oon! The Timbersaw mech being around was a godsend when it came to giving Conductor some way to fite near the end, although even then I was searching for ways to keep him competitive with the powerful ladies he was now facing. The train definitely helped shape a lot of the Brawl, so I'm grateful for this unexpected pick, and perhaps he was the most deserving of Spy's characters to get this far for injecting such a new element into the battle! MEAT BOY might be the one you expect to get farther on popularity alone though. I know he entered with Wheatley before and that let him do respawning stuff, but there's always something grand about having a character's name solid as a full on entry instead. They're added to the tapestry of the Brawl fully then, and while he didn't go too far, he did do a bit with who he was and what he could do. Making the salt bag useful seemed hard on first read but then I thought it might help against Toothy, although whether or not that delaying his recovery makes sense is something for scholars, not me! It could have been tempting to kill him in some small goofy way like touching a single salt grain, but I pencilled him in as a kill by the Triplets since they had little means to kill people in general.  Originally it was meant to be them directly killing him, but it's one of those things where as I wrote it was clear I'd need a new idea for it. I did definitely feel his limitations in how he could fite though, but I made him more clever than combative, even if he did die due to a lapse of judgment. Probably having Vampire Meat Boy from the past would make him more of a warrior, but it's good we got the pure boy just so he could enjoy the Brawl and have fun! JOSHY was a new task to tackle. He's been in Twisted Metal and the Consolation Brawl and still doesn't have many established rules to his existence, but that gives me a playground just like it did with Arr. I incorporate what we know and imagine a reality only I'm privy to for him, and it's been implied before the kratt has more going on to it than just being what Joshy drives, so that's one thing I rolled with. I made sure Joshy got in the requisite memes as well, the lines and references to glitchiness, but I wanted to give him some new tricks to so he's not just a meme vending machine. The tongue segment was to remind us that yes, this is somehow meant to be a Yoshi, and we saw some of him playing around with the idea of winning the race before he finally lost fully to Kaede. Killing him was difficult to imagine at first. Kaede even references his death means from the Consolation Brawl because it made me realize that yeah, he probably can shrug off pretty much anything, but I wanted Kaede to kill him so the idea came to basically appeal to the kratt instead of Joshy. Whatever power is in that thing was forced into Kaede by her accepting it, and Joshy was left with nothing, his loss apparently permakilling him! Joke characters definitely do have a limit when there more references than a base to explore in new situations, so I think Joshy definitely got put through his paces in his time with us and while it might have been cute to see a reference or two in the future, I don't feel like he went without doing his thing. HANK was going to be hard to write from the get go. He's a guy famous for killing waves of goons with little difficulty in his source series, but in the Brawl, you can't toss too many people onto the end of his sword. Maybe some allies or assistants could have gone down, but then you reduce the kill potential of others, and maybe he could have slaughtered owls, but I ended up taking things differently. He is an unstoppable killing machine in Madness, so I upped the Unstoppable considerably. I made sure he didn't survive anything too over the top like a head split or axe to the gut, but he was taking hits like mad and soldiering through on his adrenaline, pushing as much as he could to make his death earned and glorious. It did feel a touch odd not to give him any guns, but the arm with unpredictable energies did allow for some variation in his approach, and Hank was quickly picked as both the kind of guy who could hold The Gunslinger's kill-focused mind at bay while also being the one who could do him in. He's almost like a genderwapped Beth in some ways! The kind of Brawler I can chuck somewhere for violent chaos without need to justify it too much in character. Why is Hank fiting a huge group of characters despite the disadvantage? That's what he does, man. Lastly we have MAGOLOR who has such a grab bag of powers I wish I could have kept delving into it. The ability to call in Kirby enemies is such a big thing on its own, and I wish I could have spent more time digging into them, although I restricted myself to Return to Dream Land and smaller things since he already had so much else going for him. Pretty much early on it was obvious to me he'd never wear the crown, but who would get it was a different question. The idea he almost joined The Curse came after I already planned for him to freak out at Baba's existence so there was never potential for interaction there really. Like many other groups, the weird trio of Lupinrangers, Magolor, and Baba came together because I was like "this character would react like this to them and that one like this to that guy." and the crown was definitely the focal point for all of that. It gave the rangers something to try and steal and prove their thieving skill, it gave Baba a way to go loco, and it gave Magolor a power card to hold the group together... briefly. I'm unusually pleased with the name EGG GOBLIN and the codename probably WOULD be cooler in RP... but it was a gag name to give the pre-fite show its expected humorous edge to what is otherwise a lot of functional arrangements of characters. Magolor's ray-man hands really made me think even though he's not the first or only to have them, if only because of the way attacks came to him. Could you just grab his hand and throw it away? I never stretched the idea too far, making sure when the hand was removed it was with effort despite it being floaty. I feel like I could have gone crazier with his powers, but at the same time, you don't want to overload the reader either. Even reflecting the Lupinrangers in pre-fite could have been too much since this guy's a Kirby boss and thus has many attacks that just sort of seem to happen. Like, why does Marx have thorn attacks and split in half and all that? Cuz he's a major Kirby villain! Same with Magolor's odd powers. He used them as well as he probably could for his placement, but I could have definitely milked him so much more and spaced those powers out to really show them off individually if he had performed better. I don't think many characters I straight up regret how I used them at least, it's more a lament for having to get through a character when I know there's so much more they could have done.

HOODED PITOHUI
Our newest member! Even Big Blue and Hoodoo had accounts before Pitohui, and it's always great to get new blood into the Brawl. Of course, PITOHUI made the biggest mark in the Brawl, but she's definitely one of those characters I felt bad about limiting. She brought just one gun when this is a character whose whole thing is using a bunch of weapons, and really, she could have gotten away with bringing her photon sword too or something else, but I made due! The gems from Joy really upped her potential, as did giving her Hank's sword after his death. I usually like to have people with similar world views face off, and Pitohui basically being Sword Art Online's Madness equivalent it felt right for her to kill Hank and doing so gave her another weapon for her arsenal. The funny thing is she's not really full of powers or anything else to push her that far into the Brawl, she just really loves killing and knows how to do it, and while the Brawl and fites in general have moved away from people fiting on while being cut to pieces or shot up a lot, Pitohui seems to carry on that old spirit of having fiters just be so devoted to killing they go hog and push through a lot to do it. Having her do the pre-Brawl fite made facing Joy destined but I didn't want it locking either character up, hence the justifying of it in Pre-Fite show. It is nice that the character named for the user went so far, and it's also nice that Hooded Pitohui came in with a high placement. A Chao style win would have been wild, but it's also nice when someone can at least say they went far and push for going all the way down the road. THE ARGYRIS SISTERS on the other hand didn't get too far despite being maybe who I'd consider Pitohui's mains so far. Having three of them meant I could split up the kills as I saw fit, but the low placement made me decide for a different direction. I might not be able to give them much kills, but I could make their moment memorable, and emphasizing the family bonds made them working together and dying together more impactful than them dropping separately. We were denied some bets yes, and seeing how they act without each other could be interesting, but the drama of their moment is both something fun and different, and Pitohui himself can always introduce turmoil still to them because I didn't go into a whole "BEST SISTERS FOREVER" thing so much as them standing tall together. Funnily enough, planning phases did have them all die in the same post but not all at once, but I came up with the idea of their death picture and... well, it originally had Cirno, Nep, and Vahni in it too, and it was three separate pictures in one with comic panel borders separating them, but the hand holding death still was cool despite not having the people dropping the death dealers down be in the image. Their whole presence in the Brawl became about them learning to work together some and works as a microcosm moment that could work in a story rather than just a big ol' fite and that's what I was aiming for. One thing, Bree pointed out that Cirno, Neptune, and Vahni were sort of bullying them, and I can't say she's wrong! Cirno and Nep seem mentally immature enough not to realize it and Vahni's behavior when in character certainly has an edge to it, but this is a giant death tournament so killing people is already sort of mean. If the sisters hadn't fought back maybe they would back off, but it was three stubborn ladies facing the sisters, and the attack mixing here left everyone a little angry. I did worry Aurora and Amber's limited powers might make them tagalongs for Ainthe pre-Brawl, but the sisters sticking together and having the whole scene basically be about them avoided issues like Aurora being low on the power side. Had they lasted longer though, we would have likely seen more of the individuals rather than the team focus. CYRUS buddy I didn't mean to have you go down like this! You had a good set of spells, but the real reason Cyrus ended up self-KOing was actually because of that! I really wanted magic to go awry with Alephan's Enlightenment, but he joined up with Robin and the people he fought weren't so magical. I'd so love another go with Cyrus to better pull on that ability, really get some chaos going there, but it ended up turning into something that did him in instead. I also seize on lines sometimes, and Cyrus's love for talking ended up being used as the cue that saved Dana from sharing his fate as showing it as a true weakness. I did really wish to do more with his spells though... hence why Robin carried on the legacy! Robin got his book so I could keep using the abilities even though I couldn't have the man who brought that tome. Maybe a normal fite with Cyrus in it could work, or some gimmick deal about magic? You can't do everything with everyone in the Brawl sadly, but giving a dramatic moment to the sisters and having Pitohui rock the casbah with her kills did try to balance that out. Funnily enough, TRESSA got a lot of love too, and I think that really shows how being in a group can help a character out. Even when she's not the focus of a fite, Tressa got to lend her bow and magic to a lot early on, making her a clearer presence in the Brawl than Cyrus who both placed lower and had his ally group break some before it became a focus. Tressa definitely got to work through her many skills, and I'm really happy I got to use ones like the stealing power to get Kalcyon's head. See, Tressa stealing his head and Gunslinger shooting it would register as a Tressa/Gunslinger kill in my mind, but the standings are different! She held his head in place after all and did the removal so it couldn't be blocked! Other things like having some pretty useful wind magic to buffet around fiters kept Tressa involved even when her bow and arrow combo really wasn't the best fit for some of the foes they faced. Hank could take them easy, Kalcyon's body is metal, but she kept useful and I'm proud of the little merchant! I've said before I felt she'd join RP eventually since she's a cutie from Octopath, a game  certain community members will likely love when they get to it, so I'm glad she's around and I hope I did her justice despite not playing it yet! Her independence thing is a toughie to handle. How much does the chick want to leave the nest? The loose alliance helped a lot of characters who were avoiding allies a lot, and it was meant to give her some guidance, although fiting Neptune alone was meant to be her moment of independent focus. She died during it yes, but she held her own and killed a jet! All in all though I feel like she had the right size skillset for her placement where we could see pretty much everything without it feeling like we're either rushing to get through them or missing out on a lot of what she could do. I'd have been happy with her getting above 48th yeah, but that spot let her do a lot before dying so I'm not upset with it at all.

JUMPROPEMAN
Hey, it's me! I can't wait to see what thoughts I had on my characters! First of all, I guess the I Voted bonus does really count for a lot, as boy howdy did a few of my guys go far! I probably would have rearranged them though, I was all set for Jason-3 to place low but instead Miyu and Fay bought it early and Jason gets the inexplicable ninth place, which I certainly would have given to Cirno if I was already going to get that spot. BLASTO I have no objections too though, he's a fun character and getting far really helped the cop alliance thrive instead of it being Patty against the world for a long time. Come to think of it, it was pretty convenient Robbie and Chompette went down so close since it meant they weren't running on one too long either. Blasto does embody one problem I had with writing my own characters in the Brawl this year, and that's 3 out of 4 of my entrants heavily rely on their voices for their identities and behavior, and in the midst of the Brawl, there is some talking, but not the opportunities two chatterboxes and one odd speaker would thrive in. Besides, I'm not here to write my own characters over others, so I actually sort of detached myself from them in a way, not going in as hard as I would if I was writing them for RP moments. They fought like themselves, but their lines were limited while still being present. I was very reticent to chop of Blasto's tentacles until the late game because I knew I would eventually forget how many he had and end up with a continuity error. The medigel was a godsend for keeping him around a long time though, and since Blasto's death was hinted in previous RP to require drama, I made his death scene a bit more fun. A lot of good gags between him and Patty really, and I pretty much got to do everything Blasto could do save him not getting a wider selection of Mass Effect weapons. If not for Funkyplot I was prepared for his swimming prowess to be a surprise in the Brawl, but he showed it off early and was probably the character to best utilize the water. I bet I could point at any other Brawler of mine and say something I wish they did, but Blasto did great and doesn't really feel like he missed out on anything, especially for a character whose tactics should be "shoot, shoot, and shoot some more". JASON-3 only got my sponsorship because I was feeling bad for the satellite. Cirno got some love in the votes but I almost counted on Bree to give it some love and she didn't so I didn't want it to be a last place loser but also didn't expect it to go far even with my small push. Somehow, that took it to ninth place! Jason was actually sort of hard to keep busy during the Brawl. It was an aerial fiter and while I intended for it to have a played straight alliance with Dawn's gang at first, I broke away from that idea to later have it fite Robin and all. Jason drifted in and out of a lot of battles and might be the least active of the Top 10 ultimately while still being pretty active before then. Jason's weapons are also not exactly the most flexible compared to other characters. I gave it quite a bit so it was no slouch in battle, but it's a lot of point-and-activate tactics, hence why the battle with Vahni was more close-up to force some creativity. Jason's tactics ended up being a lot about hanging around the edges of battle to harass since that's what makes sense for it. Again, Jason's tongue was restrained some since the Brawl isn't about the attitude of my characters but some still slips in to keep them true to form. Jason was the easiest to restrain of the three though. Blasto I sometimes worried his cumbersome speech would put off people in a high action battle, Jason it was just "inject some sass" and I could move on easily without having a full chat attack. Naturally, Jason's size is still a bit hard nail down in relation to other characters, but the idea of frying Vahni came quick since I knew that at least worked. Seeing models or even video of the satellite near people doesn't help with the abstract visualization of movements, but luckily Jason's foes also played into long range a lot! The shield it got from the aliens made me wonder a lot about if it was still active or what it could resist, only getting mentioned directly I think once or twice for moments where it would clearly pull through, but otherwise I erred on a weak shield to make battles more interesting. CIRNO is the character I was hoping for the most to go far so she could get ninth at least or at least something that wouldn't make her mope, and 13th is a good spot for that. It's an unlucky number too, so it's even greater this goofball hit it in her quest to be the best! Cirno had the tightest leash for sure, her rambling idiocy in RP pretty much who she is but it can't be just dumped on the Brawl without her being too dominating a presence. I had to write these characters like they weren't mine, so we still got stuff like Cirno dissing igloos as random fixations but nothing where she truly spins off into la la land. Daiyousei was always planned to be her assist but I felt no guilt in offing her early. She does keep Cirno in check, but more and more I've felt like she's drifted from importance since Cirno learned her big lessons last year. She's still great for reactions to Cirno or guiding her to a good joke by accident, but in the Brawl, she'd hold Cirno back from gags while not adding too many interesting attacks herself. Daiyousei's powers all come from some fan-made spellcards on youtube for her and are decent for what they are, but I try to make her really bad at danmaku and magic on purpose so other than messing with the sisters a bit, she was never really going to do much, and scoring a KO would have basically been too much for her to do unless she used something outside her own abilities to do so. Cirno, on the other hand, has a lot of potential with ice and snow even if she didn't touch on her weirder ideas for its uses here. It did get some mileage like freezing butts though! Cirno was actually a pretty good pick for me to kill off some characters without much worry, such as Neeko. I've said before that I can't guarantee Cirno's reactions to a situation because an errant thought can spiral her off into reacting differently than you expected, so I can see her killing someone she'd be great friends with usually or being mean because her naivety and stupidity slip her into it without her realizing. I realized the Brawl was the first time I ever drew her as she got Electric Screwed, an image I was glad to make because such a character-specific attack deserves some art, but Cirno didn't look great in it as a recipient. A more head-on shot or something would be my real test of drawing the ice fairy. MIYU AND FAY aren't too surprising as my lowest placing honestly. They're basically my more serious and grounded characters for this year who can turn up the drama, anger, or seriousness where characters like Shimmer and Cirno couldn't and ones who could like Voyd would still have emotional hangups holding them back. I've given both girls oodles of backstory away from Star Fox canon and we've only really heard of Fay's so far, but they have mostly kept to small appearances compared to my more exaggerated characters and their friendship with Decima, while fun, means they don't know other characters as well since I'm just too happy to do the trio interacting. I often do see easy alliances between my character and someone else's based on RP interaction, but giving a sniper back-up felt smart either way and let Decima not have to stray from her role and tactics even if it made my girls the more active members. Fay, unfortunately, is meant to be a tactical expert in a world where random dice rolls determine success and everyone's just doing their own thing so she can't really guide people around much, so I worry RP makes this trait look false. Miyu doesn't have a similar problem at least! I do feel odd calling them just a dog or a cat in narration though because they're so humanoid. Their weapon loadouts are actually just different sets of references to Star Fox stuff. Most of their junk is from Star Fox Assault, those being the grenades, motion sensor bombs, Fay's blaster, and her barrier shield, although its similarity with Smash Bros.'s shields works too. Miyu uses a blaster that mixes Falco and Fox's from Smash and her reflector is their Down B, and while everyone said they are probably better pilots and should have come in Arwings, they are meant to be skilled in ground battle too! RP just hasn't been kind to them when they try! Never intended for them to use Arwings in the Brawl either, but I did waver on the back-up stuff like grenades. Blasto was hard to pick weapons for too since I decided he could get away with multiple guns so long as he only brought one type as my sort of mental "they have to be able to carry all non-kit weapons" rule I've been toying with. I worry solidifying that would cause more problems than it fixed for Brawl strength balancing though.  Fay's magic was fun to work in though, I wanted her to use her odd Mage Hand even though I learned how weak they were, but as a quick hook to help Miyu it felt like it wasn't stretching the imagination. The funny thing is, even though I wanted them to do better, I'm not sure that would impact their presence much, I think these girls work best when I can play with all their gadgets and gizmos.

HARPYKURO
One day her Brawl win will come, but I'm almost glad she didn't get too far? SONIA had a good run, but having another Emily situation could hurt. Emily got her a second she can hold onto, but I don't want her Gooping it up either where So Closes keep happening. Speaking of the pink witch, giving me a blank check with the term Chaos Magic was almost overwhelming! You can't just go full Bat-Mite with it and make her bend reality all willy-nilly, but at the same time, when you rein it in, you can't be too simple either! How random is too random? Well, I knew I had to use the rubber ducky minigun from the examples of Chaos Magic, but from there, it was just me thinking about what logically magic could do and turning it up in weird ways. It really was more like Sonia had a wild school of magic that mixed together all the other arcane arts rather than just being a free grab bag to do what I liked because otherwise Sonia could end up too powerful! Cornwind of course asked me not to kill Maple, which I imagine was at least a self-aware joke this time since I always have the defense ready that it would be rude to a user to deny them their entered character the proper Brawl treatment on account of another user's wishes, but the other thing about Taffy as deciding when its eldritch form might show and what it would be. I decided to only flirt with its true shape when it was going crazy on Giselle just so I didn't lock Harpy into something too horrid. Waffle's glamor was breaking, but not fully broken essentially as it was digging into its dark powers. Figuring out the different cats it could become was fun enough on its own anyway! Back at the main attraction, the pink witch was unsurprisingly the core of this year's Harpliance, mainly because she had the sisters baked in as immediate and unquestionable allies whereas I couldn't justify the whole Harpcast being tied to this team. It COULD work but it would be less interesting, even though they all basically knew each other and could have worked together well. Sonia was also a powerful center literally in that you'd want this witch on your side since she's as unpredictable as you could possibly get. I told CKR to draw Chaos Magic as wild as she wanted... and she did a normal beam :V I probably would have gone overboard if I had drawn it, as I might even try to include every substance the narration mentioned or something. That beam was definitely me going in on the full chaos of what she could be, but she actually ended up boxing herself in as she got too chaotic when fiting Patchouli that she wasn't finishing the job until Patchy opened that book and gave her something solid to seize on. KISHA went really far too! For the character whose whole thing was self-confidence issues she really made a deep push. I gave her princess form a brief use, but it's one of those things that could work as a joke at some point but if that doesn't crop up, it's really not Brawl appropriate stuff. Plague wouldn't abandon his Brawl ambitions to color for example, hence why it was portrayed more hypnotic than just being really nice all of a sudden. Ninja was definitely the most useful since it upped her range and movement options, and while we saw her wrestler form, I didn't commit to it too strongly. Just like princess form it seemed to often be a poor choice for the situation when she's got homing chakrams and amazing magic if she keeps to base form or ninja. I'm sure it could have found more use if there were any wrestler types this year, like maybe if she had fought Aldebaran after the Lupinranger thing it could help. Her activity was definitely backloaded despite my attempt to avoid that too much this year, perhaps riding the "mentioned in team fites" train more than most. I think that was mainly since there were a lot of characters to focus on in those fites and they'd be biting the dust sooner so they had to get their licks in there. I knew I had to whip out her big ol laser again, it could have even been a kill move in early stages of writing, but she ended up using it against Conductor and met her unfortunate fate. We got a look at her low-confidence in the pre-fite show, but in the battle I try to avoid heavy emotions save in tone appropriate situations or really big dramatic moments either late game or Brawl Disaster related. Having her just freaking out at some point would likely go over poorly even if it sounds like a logical thing to slip in, and I speak from experience in that department! Writing 8 of these big battles before has gotten me useful feedback on the do's and don't's! SELENA AND BISCOTTI, you'll notice I haven't put many assists in bold and underline yet because I'm lazy mostly! But Biscotti ended up being the star here funnily enough, sort of how IronicHide was overshadowed by Ravage, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. In a Brawl where assistants were more valued than usual, Biscotti made some big marks on the thing, and boy howdy was her magic amazing to write for! I have no qualms against adding memes to the Brawl that way. Like, even if people might whine that memes get dated, I do like the time capsule sort of feature including references to pop culture gives a piece of work, although it still needs to make sense without the needed context. If we look back in a few years and forgot what Big Chungus is, the morbidly obese Bugs Bunny is referenced with those words so you need no outside knowledge, yet it still gives meme lovers something to like! I almost thought her guns shot the internet magic at first but realized that was wrong, but her Techno Magic is such a great tool for creativity and variety that the guns didn't really feel like they needed to be there. They were her basic attack and approach to some situation, but otherwise, girl, you got skills and you got to use them! On the other hand, Selena perhaps had too little to work with. She was a physical fiter through and through, and she ended up in an alliance with flying magic users mostly. She still got to fite golf carts and Baba and Knud, but I feel if she wasn't immediately tied to people she might have put her fists to better use. For example, Eleanore's alliance could have used another bruiser, but I could only pull so many people from the Sonia gang before it becomes odd they aren't together. CERATOSAURUS had a good reason for taking Jaz and Sue to a different group, and that's the dino didn't really have the same ins those girls had with the Sonia team. Cerato, who I kept almost typing as Cerator in the Brawl for no reason, is a big old dino! Not as big as some, but the dinosaur was noted to be bad at challenging bigger and badder foes than it and they came with an olive branch, so it makes sense it would accept that to avoid trouble. I am rather fond of Sue and did wonder when I should kill her off. I almost did it earlier but when Timbersaw was oddly far without a KO I decided to pass her to his saws. Her syringe gun was a godsend though. Vaguely defined just enough I could use it to sustain Cerato and Wrexer in battles against the grimiest and foulest Brawlers from the Dump, Sue let that battle shine and it might not have happened without her excuse gun. Cerato's toy powers definitely upped its battle tactics too. Having two dinosaurs fite alongside each other is cool, but adding in projectiles was key to keeping them from being constant chomp and charge tactics. I even made sure the way Cerato kills Timbersaw references the scene from JPIII that made Harpy fall in love with it! I was a bit confused on how it's meant to look since it's used different art before and that made finding out how its head ridges/horns were in RP, so I tried to keep things workable enough if I was wrong on how they're arranged. I probably used its toy powers way too much honestly but they were such a good add to this dino! Plastic lumps have a lot more uses than you'd think! JAZ... well, every user has a character who bottoms out a bit it feels like, and Jaz's character and stuff is still so shrouded it's not too big a surprise this STREET TOUGH didn't get the same results as the other. I did enjoy her improved kit, and the joke-added food stuff was perfect for Pest. I did really enjoy her kit in Josephine vs. Jaz and made sure to give it some room, as well as giving her some moments despite going down without a kill. She realized Borodan's betrayal and emboldened the alliance when it was threatening to break apart, leading to the deep pushes of Cerato and Wrexer. She disabled Pest's incredibly powerful weapon too, something that even I was struggling with as it gave him such an edge in the fite! Perhaps Jaz would have benefitted from coming into the Brawl after we know her better both in skills and potential, but she added something to the Titan alliance with what she's got even though she was the first member of it to fall. All in all though, Harpy gave me a lot to play with even if I didn't get to use them all, and even entries that seem simple like Cerato has Sue's syringe gun to really up their flexibility. Perhaps I could have asked for some clarifications, but the entries having the upgrade/patch note stylings made me worry about pressing Harpy further for information. I don't want to make her worry too much because it's not a fault she didn't go hard on info. If anything, it was freeing in many ways and gave us some great stuff! I just always wonder how much room is intentionally open in these cases, even when she often assures me that, for her, it's intentional. Hopefully I did justice to the room I was given!

RUBYCHAO
Alas, poor FUNKY COPS you didn't get very far. I'm very glad to get them in the Brawl, but somehow they ended up getting a pretty low spot despite being so dyn-o-mite! I told Chao they could probably get away with pistols and the car since then they could drive and fire at the same time, but I still think they did alright without them, although I did give Ace a gun after the crash just to make him more effective in the ongoing Curse vs. Cops battle. Ace ended up being the cop to last longer since I felt he needed more attention. At the time, we got to see Dick do something to set him apart, that being boxing that even got a reference in the Brawl itself! I tried to do right by the Firebird before it had to meet its end, it being the hub of early action for the cops after all, and I even made sure the Nitro got in, even if that was partially to explain why they were able to send Chompette flying with an impact. Maybe if there was a musical fiter besides Jigglypuff we could have seen their disco sides more than their cop sides... now that I think on that maybe Robbie could have done something with that, but his kill on Ace was meant to show his trap side and he'd get his chance for disguises and deception at different points. They were definitely key in making the cop alliance feel appropriately sized though, but they're definitely characters I'd love to write again some day just to better embrace them. FUTO actually did worse than them, this year's last place loser! I don't feel as bad about that :V I do wish I had more time with her powers though. She's a little grab bag of weird disparate abilities and I couldn't show them all off before she had to be the first to go, although considering her quest for coolness and the fact she went down a bad path to find it, I don't feel too bad that she got this spot where a character like Phoenix Ikki didn't really deserve it narratively. I did try to get as much of her skills in as possible, but saying I was scrambling to do so is pretty accurate! I wanted to show the feng shui and plates and fire with gas canisters AND the boat! That's a lot to get in the first KO without it being too obvious that hey, she's gonna die! I could have done more with the plates and feng shui, but at the same time, going in too hard would have made it more obvious she was first up to the death plate, although I can't say I was thinking about that so actively I told myself NOT to do something. I just mostly wanted to find openings for her skills and never forced them. PATCHOULI did far, far better though, and actually was very impressive overall! More than any touhou this Brawl I leaned on her spell cards, whereas with Futo I deliberately avoided doing any touhou research so she could sort of Cirno it where I instead try to use the powers creatively instead of true to spell card land. Patchouli was all magic though so having the spell cards on hand helped guide her a lot, and considering she's a total nerd, she'd definitely go for her well-remembered flashy spell cards more than the ditzes and Komachi. Chao was worried I forgot her book, but really, it's one of those things that would have at best received a "drawing on the power of the book..." mention before its big moment of being used against her. She has such a wide variety of powers and all and the book was mentioned before I believe as being a source for her not being careful with mana use before it came up to kill her. Patchouli's definitely had a load of magic I've wanted to use myself for a long time so it was good to get to play with them now, although I almost feel like I wrote some before... I mean, she was in the Food Fite, but I don't recall where else I could have used them? It's probably really obvious and I'm dumb for forgetting! Patchouli was actually my introduction to Touhou funnily enough, because a guy I knew at school was really into it and she was his favorite character. Anyway, Patchouli wasn't alone, and boy did Elvis Impersonator make a mark for being just a guy who pretends ot be Elvis! On his own he wouldn't have been as good, his teamwork with Patchy definitely was where he would shine. The idea of using Elvis music as cues gave him reason to do his singing besides distracting people, and it was fun trying to figure out good ones for him to use in certain situations. He never did use Patchy's book as a bludgeon, but he did so much more without it! He used other things like Eleanore's cannon, but for the most part, Patchy had no reason to hand the book over and he was being useful with his arms and legs still. I did wonder going in if he would have much impact on the Brawl, but when it came time to write he was a great addition to a character who would lazily fite from the back if she could. Speaking of, laziness was not emphasized too much outside of the bleeding gag. It's another thing where it's fun if it's done for something small but could be bothersome if it screws her over or keeps her from the action, so she was active as she needed to be without being absurdly so, since her magic and movement didn't really have to push her to do much anyway. Elvis carried the activity torch, although I only called him Impersonator for short so people didn't think he was actually Elvis in the Brawl! A fun idea, but not the truth, despite what cards might tell you! KAEDE was another normy but far less physical than the Impersonator. I knew I wanted her to get a kill on her own, and originally she was slated to be the one to push Hellcow into the sun but that changed as I decided Peko and Ren would be vampires. Sunlight pushing just seemed like an easy believable way to get her a kill, although she also cooked up the plan and she cooked up how to handle Hank with her Kobber knowledge. I mentioned before I wouldn't want to twist her into something she's not, although she did get Joshyfied, she didn't use Joshy powers to beat him, she became him to beat him! Which is weird but it makes sense! It's not the same as being turned into something and then using non-native powers to win. Kaede's knowledge was her big thing and thus emphasized any time she did something, even managing to hold Hellcow at bay because she figured out to cross her fingers so a holy power would repel it. A fun but hard moment was deciding which Kobber trivia Peko would use to pull her back from being turned into Kaduh. I wondered how obscure it should be, things like the rats Gezora ate of course coming to mind, but even the basic stuff she lead with like who won a DYM I wondered about. I wanted it to make sense even if you didn't know what was being referenced. Like, why would anyone CARE what rats Gezora ate? But winners of a contest, members of a group, that seemed reasonable and Peko would at least remember those off the top of her head. Plug Man was decided as the clincher though since he barely appeared but was around just enough to be remembered, although phrasing how to get to Percy was hard. Real name? Human name? Chosen name? What exactly is Percy to Plug Man? Peko was made a bit more emotional than usual mainly because of the stresses of the Brawl, mainly the idea Kaede might be lost forever. Funnily enough, it was her who kept the Brawl transformation! Rainbow Dash killing Kaede was easy to pick. A Kobber fan like her would love to be killed by someone important if she had to die, and RD's Brawl track record makes fiting her practically part of the Brawl experience! Hence why she rainboomed her too, just for maximum geeking out on Kaede's part. Peko's vampire powers were definitely to up her capabilities as Kaede's defender. Good with Sword isn't bad per se, but giving her vampire powers allowed her to keep up with Rainbow Dash and Hellcow and so on, but I feel I'm repeating myself here. Just like Ren, I killed her in a plausible way that would make it impossible for her to bounce back without going full obliteration like with Hellcow so that Chao could bring her back after. Lastly, we got DR. KALCYON the big doctor boy! Early ideas for him included things like maybe Pitohui getting injured early, appealing to him for healing, and the doctor feeling he had to as part of his moral code only to get betrayed and maybe take her down. Then the results arrived and they were far apart on the scoreboard! Instead, I turned him into a big, well-armed early game bruiser who would give people trouble despite getting wiped from the board. I made sure to ask Chao where his attacks came from and I still have the notes on it in case it's relevant to anyone else! "Chest area is missiles, Lower chest/abs is laser, Shoulders is machine guns, Knees is flamethrowers, rocket fists" is exactly as it appears in my notes, grammar error and all! I mostly wanted to make sure that A: any art of him was accurate and B: if I disabled a part I could disable the weapon. His head jar shattering felt like it was going to have to be the kill somehow and it actually works really well with chao's post-brawl stuff since they were literally separated, but I probably could have blown the whole body as well if I thought to do so. Maybe Chompette threw this big body in the lake while trying to get Blasto and Patty? Anyway, a robot body that's big and packed with weapons always gives a lot of room for on the fly weapon changes and power, and he was pretty good for keeping the loose alliance focused and on the defensive. Maybe should have worked in more of his doctor knowledge, but his lack of allying deliberately probably could be a big in-universe reason for his lower spot, especially considering how much teamwork and general intersection of interests and aggression there was this Brawl. Guy couldn't cut it on his own, even with his beefy robo-bod.


CORNWIND EVIL
While I did think DAWN needed some time away from the Brawl after pushing so hard for so many years, it was nice to have her back and chill. Very rarely do we get to see her Brawl body before the big day, so having the Vulture suit show up and do stuff entirely independent of Brawl ambitions made it more interesting as a potential thing to use in the Brawl, hence my encouraging of her entry. She definitely ended up fiting in a way different than usual because of her different motives and her Brawl body being a departure from some of the hyper-specialized nanomachine mega cannon having things of the past. It was basically like writing Spider-Man Homecoming's Vulture but with a lady android for the mind. Sheep isn't wrong about how Dawn always ends up seeming to organize a pre-fite show event when she's around, but this time she was doing it for Vent's sake instead of her own. After all, she understands the desire to make a mark in the Brawl, so making it work for him seemed a natural angle and one encouraged slightly by her entry. The motors of the suit are a bit awkward to explain in writing, not because I think they're hard to understand, but I didn't want to keep mentioning their slight independent movement too much before they were used as a way to kill her. The whole thing with Kisha and Sonia stopping their KO was very much me going to myself that Dawn doesn't feel like she'd bet everything on the head... although she's done it in RP before and left herself vulnerable to other things you'd expect a resistance to! Regardless, I didn't want her to be overprepared here since she was doing this for kicks instead of a crusade, but at the same time, her reputation proceeded her here, so they were more thorough with their kill. I'm quite pleased she did just a touch better than her previous run now that she's not going in so hard on WIN WIN WIN, I've mentioned before I've wanted her to win for that devotion even if it got to be a bit much. I did have to keep refreshing my knowledge of what the suit could do though whenever it was time for her to fite. TASERFACE actually didn't earn any KOs unless you count eradicating the helper raccoons, something not done intentionally. I think he mostly just slipped into an odd placement in the rankings because he did get play both as goofy Taserface and as sneaky Tsrfc, although I avoided using that name since it would probably confuse in retrospect or to casual readers. Hence why it was also not like "oh he's acting like his real self now guys, look!". Instead, his goofier side was there for early Brawl like when he helped with Hank and then the way he took on Vince showed his more assassiny side like how he tried to use Llarness to hold Vince back. Huh... another case of a user having their characters fite! But Llarness got off clean from that exchange. The suit taking was also meant to show the smarter side of him, but he was definitely mostly about the public persona/how he was shown in Guardians of the Galaxy, as he definitely rode the jokes to his vote popularity (even though I think he was ultimately less popular vote total wise then he seemed, sort of a lot of low votes situation maybe?) Those knives would have 100% got more play if they didn't dissolve into poison when taken, but I still made sure to have someone try and use them and suffer for it. Back on the raccoons, there was almost no interaction between him and BK, but the raccoon invasion made it easy without putting BK in the spot where he'd need to fite a battle against someone so skilled it wouldn't make sense for him to do well. Funnily enough, Taserface placed only one spot higher so it could have been easy to do the Taserface kills BK then situation, but I'm sure you could tell I tried to less "kills then dies" than usual this year. Looping back to LLARNESS now and boy howdy that's another bag of powers that I could never get to exploring as fully as I wanted to, even if she won! Even not counting the powers she was deliberately avoiding and probably would have only used if she had gotten super high or in a dire strait, the fact she could make store displays, transform into anime characters, make facsimiles of them... there was a lot of room to do all kinds of kooky and crazy stuff! Probably the only limits were self-imposed, such as me trying to figure out which Brawlers or Kobbers qualified as anime since I don't usually ascribe to the idea these characters also have their source material in universe. Cornwind is definitely the user who most embraces that idea, hence why it came up in the entry, but someone like Neeko felt like a natural fit even though she definitely shouldn't have a League of Legends character in ZFRP considering her origin but at the same time it was perfect for an "I'm you You're Me" situation. It's always felt odd to say things like these characters are in live-action animes or whatever too when that's not an anime any longer :V Still, I mostly stuck to what I felt were safe anime characters to reference with a few jokey moments of Llarness becoming people like Vince, and I already mentionted me unfortunately forgetting her Secret Fiter connections earlier which was a shame. I mostly just had situations and wanted to have an anime character to get out of them, hence why FMA's Gluttony showed up. Needed someone heavy to smash the vehicle down with, didn't want to go too obscure. Nurse Witch Komugi, an anime I inexplicably remember despite it not being much, got a reference for an obscurity joke, and I got silly with the Shonen overload moment. I know Llarness was noted about wanting to turn up the sex appeal during the fite and its one of those things where maybe she did while not in focus, but when you've got so so many options, it's not like using your butt for an attack is going to crop up unless you make it happen. I did struggle to think of a female anime mechanic though, too many obscure ones and I didn't want to say Carol from RP was anime. I could get so much mileage from these powers though that it was always about holding myself back from going too deep in and losing the audience along the way. I expected Llarness in the Brawl since she became a thing, but never with such a bountiful power set. RENNIE had a new body and one I actually think I expected more powers from. Cornwind did leave it open that he might have more junk in there than just what he notes, likely as a way of handing me the room to go off the expected course, and I definitely put more Xel in there than he meant as part of doing that, but mostly I had fun with his attitude to the fite. On his own he could be a lot more of that flighty "I'm doing this now" thing kids do, and while there was room for a family betrayal in his entry card description, I just had him spiral off and do his own stuff instead as his sign of not being too into that angle. He's always been the Dawnling with the most pronounced personality and the one always looking to test his limits and get into weird situations, so his return was a good pick out of the four and the one that had the most legs I feel unless we get to know the others a bit more sometime. The only one of his described abilities that didn't come up often was the running on all fours thing mostly because it was more an escape or movement tactic rather than a fite one, and while Rennie did move around and put some distance at times, when he was in something, he was going for the elimination and his odd approach was actually how he put people off. Giselle specifically noticed his lack of self-preservation from those systems Dawn gave them to keep them safe always making him play less safe in daily life than he should. To put it simply, he'd touch an oven because his systems always did the learning not to for him instead of his actual brain. JOY was definitely the character Cornwind put his hopes on though, and unfortunately, I find one of the rules of randomness is that the character who gets the most votes for the Brawl never wins. Usually though, they do pretty well, so this placement was a bit baffling. I specifically held off on her using her ultra super intracacy powers just because this felt like a premature elimination rather than her being pushed to her very limit and falling. Still, losing to Pitohui made sense and she was outsmarted rather than overpowered, and she did do things like use her horse armor to ensure it wasn't her avoiding her power, rather she got killed before she could go in even harder. The limits on her super forms were pretty good too to justify why they weren't used in her other skirmishes, and after all, she won all but one without having to resort to them. Her weapon gems were so so useful, and I knew I couldn't push the passing onto Pitohui angle long without stretching plausibility. Hence why one was almost done offhandedly as she had to focus, plus Joy was trying to pick her weaker gem options while making sure Neeko had one to help her out with their battles in the cold. Really, these gems were a huge factor in the Brawl throughout, even cropping up in the finales thanks to Pitohui carrying them on, so Tressa, Joy... your spirits lived on. Figuring out her weapon arrangement pre-brawl was a thing, I just mostly applied the hold at the same time rule and let her go with a gun and sword. Riotous... was a hard horse to figure out! I almost wondered if it should count as an assistant like Gregor's horse... although even that was a little weird. Riotous seems to be tied heavily to Joy as an extension of her though, almost familiar-esque, and I made sure it fell right before she did as well. If Joy had gone the expected distance, you know there would have been some robot horse killing someone action, I even had to make sure there was a visual reference just in case, but fate wasn't too kind to her for some reason. I would have been cool with a Joy win too and was almost bracing for one... maybe I did subconsciously have a Brawl winner in mind and that's what hurt her. I did have a lot of fun with her in the pre-Brawl fite she had, such as playing with her hat-is-a-mask concept and emphasizing that her outfit really does a lot to protect her. Pitohui was naturally the most prepared to overcome that though, having learned from her fite and no doubt thinking on the rematch even more than Joy would. Stream users are always a bit of a package of powers that I never feel I can truly use to max potential but still try to do awesome stuff with. One of the few cases of me coloring black and white (and red for blood) art did come from the Stream power kill she pulled on Vince though, since it didn't look like power before the coloring. Just looked like a cracked egg or something. I was worried when I read her and Vince hanging out in RP during Brawl write time, but luckily nothing big came of it and, if anything, it sort of makes them facing off make a touch more sense since Joy does seem to want to re-fite people she's faced before a lot... although that's just Cornwind in some ways :V I got to give mad props to Joy in general as a character though. Cornwind's cast has a wheelhouse they don't stray from too much, on top of being part of the same social circles a lot, and while Joy is from Ashworld, she feels more separate, carving out her own niche, having moments where she doesn't know something Cornwind would have a Dawn sweep in to answer or even Springtrap, another good breakaway, would usually step in and give a serious explanation. And then have his head fall off. Mawplot has also been going pretty well, although I write this part of the blogpost before it's ended! Taserface being the only Ravage in the Brawl sort of kept any elements from it cropping up in the fite, but I do like having those little remnants of old plots here and there, like how SK had Deadhead in BBB3. Joy's alliance with Neeko was almost too obvious to mention here, but I think of the interuser duos it might have been one of the strongest. Funnily enough, the other contenders are things like Vince and Llarness or Dawn and Build, although Dawn broke away more than the other two. Sheep was spot on in how this did lead to many moment where a Corwnind assisted character faced a different Cornwind char, to the point I had to restrain Joy from fiting during the Neeko vs. Llarness portion! I don't know why it happened that way save perhaps his characters having similar interuser social circles... albeit it Taserface never really interacted with Vince before soooooo... hey how about that Brinehammer?

BRINEHAMMER
The cool ladies with loads of power! The RPG roots for many brinechars often means when they enter a fite, I'm gonna get a lovely list of potential abilities to pull on... CHOMPETTE of course didn't have those! That's not a complaint though, she was a perfect powerhouse for The Curse and she had things like summoning Chain Chomps to give her more options than being strong, fast, and heavy. Her profile mentioned she doesn't LIKE to bite things, so you'll notice she doesn't try it much, either using it to over Gendarmor or using it in frustration on Grey Moon's projection. For the Chain Chomps, maybe she could have done it more, but I do often do a highlight moment for special abilities with a lot of room and they were given use outside their use to kill Dana, such as the Robbie Rotten kill! Chompette's dog-like mind did mean she was going to always be a bit slow on certain things but I didn't want her full on dumb, hence why she doubted Robbie's disguise at first, but King Plague is also the kind of guy she'd believe the world of, so why couldn't he come back from being split? I do wish I had done things like make her use the Chomp boxing gloves more since that's a fun concept, but I did wonder about certain things like her strength limits and her actual weight. I tried to be careful in how I approach them, changing the objects she threw into the lake to smaller things and making sure the Funky Cops boosted before hitting her.We've seen a lot of the doggyness in Chompette's behavior in the past but also her more human mind now and I'm sort of glad a Big Bar Brawl doesn't have many moments for characters to sit and chat since you can always say the heat of a moment leads to action rather than having to work out the area between her two sides. In a big chaotic battle, you will lean on your emotions a lot, so her freakouts were definitely more her dog brain rather than the rationality she's developing and working on in her human form. Maybe I'm fretting too much though, but the powers of the Super Crown are super vague, even moreso since people have taken it away from just transforming you into Princess Peach. I do definitely dig the many designs to come from the craze, and while it's no surprised Chompette is a great character in Brine's hands, I feel it had room to go off rails in RP if implemented too casually or in hands where the user doesn't think through it much. GISELLE also had her rage moment for Aiko's death but she was able to cool down on her own for the length of time after being too long to really keep going full rage mode. I actually avoided too many details on Aiko and Giselle's relationship besides closeness in case it escalated during writing! Anyway, Giselle's rot touch was a really fun tool to consider the uses for. I actually wasn't sure the limits on the way she could touch things to activate it, and knowing me if I was told the whold body could do it I would probably have her horns stab someone than infect them with the rot, but I'm guessing she can't rot touch through her own clothes and she does usually use her claws for it, so no stretching the potential necessary! The Curses were definitely an interesting angle though and I enjoyed cooking up different ways they could work their way in. I made sure not to have any lingering ones on characters who disengage with Giselle much so that I could keep bringing them in relatively cleanly without having to remember she had one on Johnny Fivemilesaway that would limit her action potential. I explained why Giselle was the arena cutter elsewhere but you know I wanted to make that scythe as big as I could sometime after learning about its potential, it just needed a better use than just cutting a regular sized person in half to justify the size increase. The curses gave me a great way to suck in the power to do it too! Giselle was noted as able to glow, but while it would have been a neat detail to mention to show her different states, there's an economy of words as well. She definitely got to show her dragon side though, the fire being a great way to really keep people back in Giselle fites and I always made sure to emphasize how absurdly strong it was when it came up. While Giselle has a fun and friendly personality in RP sometimes, this was Giselle in fite mode, and as we saw agaisnt the Indoraptor, she can go very loco and animalistic, so her battle mode was pretty much the big focus since there weren't many reasons for her to crank her down, especially since she's perfect as one of those characters who can draw a lot of fiting towards her and still handle it believably. GUNN was quite the surprise in her low placement, but she was competing with a lot of other brineladies for the love. The valkyrie had so many different powers I just couldn't work in well considering the time, especially since so much of her powers tied to lasting long and kills getting racked up. She definitely had the potential to bloom into almost a godbeast tier fiter, but then the tractor told me she wouldn't and I had to figure out how she went down early. She's no secret to the other entrants so eliminating her early to prevent that snowball effect came to mind early, but the mention of kaiju fiting in her profile got my mind rolling. A big enemy she could show some power and tactics against but believably die to early made sense, and I even made sure to emphasize she did want to retreat to fite another day, but this was her fate sealed. So many of her little skills could have been a lot of fun if she lasted, like the ravens meaning she could pop into another battle elsewhere. While I would have loved to play with the runes, and that healing even gave me the idea she might revive a fallen Brawler at some point for an assist in a situation we haven't seen before really the tractor dropped her low, and perhaps it spared me the odd worry of trying to believably kill her when she got out of hand. I know most people would probably accept whatever kill method I personally justified as sufficient for an out of control superpowered valkyrie, but I need to worry about those things to avoid the cases where people wouldn't! I think I considered for a bit someone else picking up the Storm Spear, but the nature of the weapon made me wary of doing so. With so many hidden depths to weapons in RP or "can only be wielded by" statements in profiles you start to wonder where that line needs to be, and the Storm Spear can be recalled, a staple of those types of weapons. I keep flipping over to my notes on her as I write this and just see all the things I could have used and was prepared to draw on, but that's the tragedy of a brine char too. I love to play with the list of skills but even though I can usually slice out a big chunk of them and feel I did a good job of representing their variety, if they don't get far, then it's inevitable they can't pull out enough of the stops. DECIMA I guess is the Brinechar I've adopted this year, although I've been trying not to throw Miyu and Fay at her every time she appears in RP in case Brine wants space for her to grow and interact beyond my space animals. They're probably overdue to interact some though since my Brawl absence. I've had a few snipers in the Brawl, like Santos and Rose, and the ways I integrate them shift a lot. Decima's magical bullets really gave room for new ways of using one though. She wasn't always going to go for a straight kill shots. She could disable a big foe, disorient others, or pester foes from afar if she couldn't get a shot down by adding spells to the bullet. I probably could have added more elements to the bullets, but the potential for plopping a spell on top was such a grab bag of interesting uses I couldn't resist having that be the big focus of her tactics, especially since it meant we didn't have to have the old "accuracy vs. dodging skill debate" I get worried about with sniper-type characters. She would shoot the ground to make sure the magic went off, or aim for a broad part of the body, and the fact she could blast the Skeleton King without killing him for real at least gave me a moment to say she is going for some kill shots the traditional way as well. The reason Sun Shang got killed by the spell she did was the fun way the eruptions were described. It's one of those spells that immediately speaks to me as a strong option, but I also wanted to make sure Decima wasn't blasting through powerful spells too often. She had to measure them out and remember her allowances, hence why she wasn't digging into the deep end all the time. If she got farther, she would need to hold onto the higher level spells, and I did make sure to remember the allowances whenever I was pulling from the bottom of the list. I didn't keep a count on paper or anything, but it was easy to go down the list and say "she's done this in this category" to keep me from accidentally overdrawing from the magic bank. Being a sniper also gave me a chance to injure her heavily early since she didn't need her physical body as much, and the fite with Robin let me show off some of her finger-waggle magic, especially that orb that I keened on as another great fite prop. Brine's comment on how he loves disintegrate made me want to include it... but I remembered Nyx also had that comment! So unlike with her, I didn't make it a kill move but still trotted it out for some fun. More importantly, that homing bullet was a lingering consideration, I think I remember the idea of it in the ice cave for some reason to perhaps weave around the winding interior to emphasize its relentlessness. Teaching magic mid-brawl was also a good way to keep her bullets off the table a bit believably, and I'd say by now Fay has a good handle of the low level magics, hence why they show in Mawplot. Naturally, I now use Decima's magic list from the Brawl to remind myself what Fay can do V: I guess she did always have that one free spell slot use to get around a miscount spell usage wise, and there were a lot of D&D stat-type things I could have pulled on more like Contagious Spell, but at the same time, do we want an ice-charged six level spell that a spell slot was consumed to use that had contagious spell, seeking spell, and who knows what else piled on top of it? ...Maybe, but that would have to be a kill shot for a big or dangerous foe or something.

DRACO
Fun fact about MAGNOLIA, when I was assiging KOs on the first day of knowing results I for some reason had her killing Biscotti and getting killed by Selena... but then I realized that made no sense! I think it was just at that point I was searching for giving kills to characters and realized they were missing some. That might be why Selena didn't make a big mark after all. Magnolia really got around this Brawl though because she was easy to tie to two people who also had their own little alliances. I did enjoy injecting her into a lot of situations, and her Guardian form ended up being pretty useful for revealing a weakness in Unity's possession antics. I know there are some people who feel possession can get icky, but Guardian is at least temporary and I didn't push it as too much of Magnolia's tactics, it cropping up from time to time but not really defining her brawl performance, especially since it was the main schtick of another character. The bigger question was probably what other Guardian abilities I'd be pulling on and the same for her Valkyrie form. The Valkyrie outfit from Bravely Second is such a weird look that I did wonder a few times how solid it was, where the defenses were... Guardian was a lot more straight forward but it didn't have the same agile design that let Magnolia really bounce around team fites freely and contribute. I did try to avoid having Draco fite his own characters again, something I've been striving to get away from since Gyaos, but Magnolia being around lead to her getting knocked away by a Blastoise, although I did at least try to make sure no Draco chars heavily injured each other or anything. Cornwind probably got the most character on character damage for a user's own characters and even that was mild... some day though we will likely have a finale where two user characters face off. I bet it will be Harpy honestly :V Anyway, Magnolia's asterisks were definitely a question of which ones would be in, and I honestly expected maybe Pattisier, but she chose the fite-smart route and made it pretty far on it. I had Vahni down as killing her but ended up twisting that situation more than intended, so by the time Camilla was in a Futo costume I worried I wouldn't be able to kill Magnolia, but the spear seemed a smart way of avoiding Valkyrie armor worries and giving Camilla a strong weapon. We'll no doubt talk more on that in her section though... or Vahni's rather. I do enjoy what Draco is doing with that takedown post-Brawl though, at least in the way Camilla was acknowledged as being there. Magnolia never did fall for the weird disguise, I just didn't know if she would recognize Camilla despite that! BORODAN had his own alliance fun, but did something I really think we should see more of! Sure, Chompette killed Robbie, but that was less alliance betrayal and more a fit of anger overtaking her. Borodan is a smart guy and from a race called the DECEPTICONS. I actually read a lot of old Borodan RP just to make sure I wasn't pushing him too far, and his early stuff at least showed to me he had the potential to do this, but newer stuff made me think he wouldn't be so brazen. Hence the chat with Jaz was him giving them the license to leave the alliance too. The fact the Titan team were locked in combat with a few small guys for so long made me think that someone would realize it wasn't working out and Brodoan was definitely the most tactically minded of the team and the de facto leader as its organizer. It also gave him some room to move outside the group before he would end up getting taken down. Originally Borodan was meant to show BK was growing out of control with his hole, but things got to have more of a meaning to them as the old alliance comes back to fite him. Both the robot form and the Gigan form were pretty good for battle, and I always felt like I could find something fresh for him to do even though he doesn't have a spell list or anything crazy. He's the biggest Brawler here after all, and even if he couldn't whip out a crazy move, someone could climb up his back and force new tactics from him. Getting Borodan this Brawl in particular felt like the right time, and while he never really fought fellow big boy Daipenmon... we got our cake with the Titan alliance and we got some pie too when they come back for vengeance later! Also, I'm sure it's been noticed by now, but anything with physical transformations I like to consider how it could go wrong with damage, hence the chainsaw sword stuck in Borodan after he assumed the human form again since the Gigan form was so damaged. Perhaps the most important research for the Brawl though was asking Sheep about BK's hole. I was not going to risk another Draco permakill and this was even not the only one I potentially brushed against! I just think of ways to kill Draco chars that seem fun but unfortunately they often jeopardize revivability :V Anyway, the hole was described by Sheep as killing anything that feel in with a sort of zap, which isn't how it is in Donut County for obvious reasons, but here I made sure to go through the lengths of describing the fate of who fell in without going into full detail of how it was twisted by Sheep. I figured Sheep could tell Draco if need be, but I even made sure to specify that Borodan fell somewhere rather than nowhere! Still killed him though, that's the key feature of getting that research from Sheep. If the hole didn't have that zappiness or however Sheep phrased it, I would have just had him get crushed in the giant pile of other junk to make the elimination work still. ROBBIE ROTTEN was a bit of an entrant from nowhere, as in I had no way of expecting him! I had been told about Jinx before hand, but when I saw Robbie I didn't know what to think at first! The Curse tie made it a lot easier to integrate him though, but there were of course some questions to be had about how he'd fite. He's a trap layer and disguise master, but nothing really lethal in his kit, hence why he pilfered a gun or two just to keep up his part of the group in team fites. He did prefer to sneak around of course, it's in his famous song! In fact, the memetic presence of Lazy Town stuff made it really easy to slip into him, and there were so many times I had to hold myself back from going in deep with things like describing the sound effects of his actions or exaggerated movements. The disguises really opened up a lot of doors though. I was imagining the Robbie Righteous deception even before he was confirmed to get in through the lotto! Curse really would have been different if the lotto hadn't been fully integrated. I often wonder if some users are okay with being deceived by a transparent disguise like this, hence the jokes about Grey Moon seeing through it, but it worked for what it had to early on, and Robbie Plague-Ridden was a great way to keep the Curse going once Plague fell. Robbie is one of those characters with a lot of memes to them and I definitely played into some, but again didn't want to overcommit. Guy did his net thing and all, but he had an effective snare and other moments where he did some things that weren't all from We Are Number One. There was perhaps more room to disguise him up, place more traps, and so on, I recall deciding against one here or there mostly because it didn't work in the situation at hand, but sadly I can't remember any save maybe Robbie trying to pretend to be another Brawler and I can't even remember who that was. Perhaps the only true misgiving I had about Robbie Rotten was the fame of his actor Stefan Karlson and the close association between them. I wasn't actually killing that beloved internet figure, but at first I did wonder if I would feel bad about killing his famous role. I think they are distinctly different enough, and I guess I have killed real world figures like Hulk Hogan before without remorse, so clearly I'm a sociopath and should be stopped. Really though, it was a case of wondering if that might be brought up or something, especially when I learned Karlson's birthday is Brawl day, but it didn't because thankfully fiction and non-fiction feel distinct enough in this case. KING BIRURITCHI really gets the most out of the Curse idea in that Draco had two whole entries in it and both were great! King Biruritchi's deck list is actually a very specific one from his source game, with Draco saying he used Water types, some Grass, and some Colorless, I pulled open Gamefaqs, found out Biruritchi had a ton of different decks, and selected the one closest to that description and perhaps the exact one Draco meant! The Tsunami Starter deck as defined b the Gamefaq on Pokemon Card GB2 has the cards featured, and many of them were actually quite good both in the card game and as Brawler Pokemon. This was almost like if I had allowed a trainer to bring their team, save for their increased vulnerability and all that. Scyther was great for being a force to be reckoned with, we had to reference that Clefairy from his deck or I would be killed for my crime in leaving it out, the Squirtle core gave him some work in the early water battle and gave a clear evolution path to follow, Mr. Mime added a unique ability with the wall creation... Lapras I had planned to have The Curse ride in the lake at some point but the water battles were limited and didn't really favor that chase dynamic you'd think calling in a Lapras would entail. The bigger question than the Pokemon on offer though was definitely the Trainer cards, who had so much potential to be either something simple and card focused or fun and Brawl focused. PlusPowering allies was the first twist I came up with for using a Trainer outside its card game purpose, but Gust of Wind and Super Potions and all that had much clearer applications. Things I did wonder on though was using Switch to swap fiter positions, Bill's Teleporter to get out of a jam, and I wondered if he should just play Bill at one point to draw, but then that would make you wonder if that card has a real world application as well or if some cards were just for the card game side of things. It's taken a lot of energy not to imagine him using a Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Disk for all of his card playing shenanigans, but his noted physical weakness besides the cards made him great for Patty to get a physical kill in. Wetting the cards to make them unable to work kept them from being used by others, because even though I love this power and concept, some weapons do need to be wiped from the board because I couldn't justify Patty not using them otherwise, and at that point she becomes Cop Biruritchi. Took a long time to learn that name spelling by the by. The card thing made him almost like a support mage to the group while also being a summoner! This guy was a realy gift. MOLTAR was the other character at risk of a possible permadeath situation actually. Moltar's original death method would be Plague driving the Badass Plague Tank into the Brawl water so that the holes in Moltar's suit would let the water in and completely solidfy his body, but I didn't want to kill this guy forever! He's cool and a great vote host, but he's also got a weird biology that I felt would be hard to kill in a few different ways. You kind gotta mess with that suit somehow or do something that would blast him away hard, so the suit compromises became the means Plague would use to defeat him. Moltar's cool head was actually a big influencer in his Brawl behavior, his movement through fites a bit looser than many characters, and the Steve the Sock tie was an early idea as a joke that could put him with someone briefly. I tried to do research on Moltar's potential body under the suit and that's how I learned things like how Moltar has a wife before we saw that in RP. No real strong consensus on it and I couldn't find the episode of the OG Space Ghost that featured him either, although I probably could have dug around much harder or shelled out some cash for it. I did want him to use both his bright head and lava body for damage, and while Moltar's laser gun is so simple in concept, it got a lot of use because it was an easy to understand but strong weapon others could pick up and make use of. Moltar's middle of the road strategy partially came from things like him saying he might be interested in Curse allying. Moltar seems smart despite his supervillain past, an opportunist who would have allied with Plague at the right moment, hence why the pre-fite show established this tactic expressly. He's like those people during an election who don't pick a party, they wait to see how the party courts them... I believe they call those guys voters too. Weird huh? ;V Fiting Plague and his Shrapnel was definitely meant to show his strength and danger level, especially considering we saw him having trouble with a sock and raccoon earlier and needed a way to recover from that. I mean, he won against the sock, but Plague fite showed more of his regular skills and power so there was no humiliation in his participation.

M SHEEP
GREY MOON. Yes, he could have been more interesting with Johannes as an assit, and hell, I'd have probably kept Johannes around a long while after Grey Moon's fall to give the cops another head around, but I still liked Grey Moon for being just so out of his element. He has a gun, he's a guy, and while he has a nifty mutant power, he somehow felt worse off in some ways than Kaede! The cop alliance really was his major help, and gave him a few more moments then he might've had otherwise. He was perfect for throwing Mr. Mucus at the Plague tank for example, and his astral form, while not useful by design, helped spread The Curse out a bit by being so unusual. Despite his attitude he was mostly used for humor, like seeing through Robbie's disguise immediately and his inability to get his power going. I did wonder how to get it out and didn't want to just repeat how we first saw it happen. I mean, he was in a car even! I can't so directly reference that Funky Plot day! His gun was good for making Ace a better part of the team fites too after the car was gone, but he was sort of doomed to low placement for being a schlub with very limited application in battle. I tried not to have him go out like a punk, even though he never actually really fought the person who killed him, which rarely happens. WREXER I was so very happy to finally get, and even though I like the nerdy dinosaur mutant, he ended up doing more than even I expected! That alliance really came together for him, especially since he became a sort of leader for it just by being the one to charge in first rather than strategizing. His high placement and Cerato's meant they stuck around a long time as a team too. I wanted to still remind people of his human side despite it being a lot less useful than his teeth and big dino body, but it being less useful comparatively also gave me license to yank its arms off! Maybe I would have given him something more to do after the Pest fite if that hadn't happened, but it was also one of those moments of "hey, remember how violent and strong these guys can be?" I made sure to get the tail catapult move in there too, even though it wasn't really usable by many of his allies. At most he could have launched Sue or Jaz but only Jaz had a good follow-up and even then, who would she fite with that method? Instead, it was a pass of Pest. Big unwiedly dino bodies can be hard to use on guys like Timbersaw I found, especially since Timbersaw is a bit of a sea urchin when it comes to safe places to touch. Still, despite sticking around so long, I never felt like I was stretching to keep him fiting or falling back on something rote. This was basically what having Rexy as the previous Secret Fiter would have been like but with more room to act and a personality beyond DINOSAUR. He really did just feel like such an obvious Brawler from Sheep cast, hence my enthusiasm for him, but his run really showed his potential too. He almost became Cerato's big bro as they fought alongside each other! Not often this guy gets to hang with intelligent dinos I imagine, and they worked really well as a pair. VAHNI also had a very deep run, and I bet Chao was to blame. Her little transformations I knew I had to make good use of, but that princess form was a real toughie to work in. I think partly why we got the three on three versus the Argyris was the concept of Vahni assisting someone with this form working well with Cirno loving others with ice powers. Of course, looking at the princess powers there aren't a lot of traditional support options, although the idea of someone taking the hit for Vahni became one I had to work in somewhere, hence Daiyousei's unwilling involvement there. Ragelope was a lot easier to work in, it was just a matter of when to deploy it. I almost didn't want to use it for her final battle because then I had to draw Ragelope Vahni instead of the more identifiable look, plus I worried about the look of the mascot suit making it almost just too much Ragelope or too much Vahni! Still, she made it so far into this thing that she had a lot of room to use her skillset, and I even whipped out Ultimate Golf Works early to keep some doubt in the air about her run, as well as it being the perfect complement to the other two girls using big rain style strikes. It also put a lot of golf clubs in play, helping me get around the fact that Vahni transforming objects into golf clubs limits their potential for abilities. I imagine I did overdo the amount of clubs it could drop, but we also didn't see them so much or in odder areas to avoid having it be too overboard. One thing I didn't overdo though was her speeches when attacking! I wanted some in there, but calling out everything does slow pace and I kept the ones in that establish unique abilities or prepared you to assume she was saying similar things later on. Having golf balls in play was the harder thing to justify, but the caddy and other skills made it easier to imagine they found their way in so she could start using her powers more. I knew that magic wand she brought would have to make a magical girl appear, but Vahni already had so many skills I didn't think she needed that touch too. It's a weapon better off out of her posession essentially, and while I did consider Magical Girl Selena briefly, Harpy has plenty of Magical Girls, so it felt more fun to give ivel an unexpected one. We'll cover this more with Almaric though. Being over the top gave Vahni some fun moments like the train ditch, but the real moment I wondered about was getting Camilla in there. I'm glad I found a reasonably fun spot for it, and the Futo reintegration is just one of those absurd Only in the Brawl moments I like to make happen. Hitting Magnolia's face with the club to daze her made me worry for a moment about it not making sense as a way to daze someone... until I imagined it in real life! Then I was like "hell, how WOULD someone not be a bit off kilter after metal smacks to the head quickly and repeatedly?" It wasn't a magical form though so no magical Futo powers for Camilla despite the temptation, and I put her back in Vahni after a reasonable enough break that didn't keep her on the sidelines too long. THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE made a wild run considering how they're not much more than Grey Moon and almost deliberately weak in that they are just old ladies. Situations allowed me to justify their continued presence, mainly that being the train where it made enough sense for them to avoid danger and then they were around enough strong people at times to keep them safe or weird people to let them actually fite. Finding a spot for that one grenade was important and it was picked to kill Meat Boy even before I decided it should be an accident, but they did earn a real kill on Mr. Mucus. Which sister to keep kicking was a decision of course too, and Violette actually got her death moved up when I didn't want Hot Dog Monster going down without a fite. She got to use her frog food too to fite him! I think watching their movie before the Brawl really helped with writing them, and the main reason Rouge made it as far as she did was... her look. The frying pan was the most useful weapon honestly, but she stood out more than the other two, serving as a better anchor for their late game. Technically, Esme was around just as long as her, but the idea to add her to Unity felt safer than most additions since I'm sure of most users, Sheep was the least likely to be upset about a character being integrated, on top of it being someone deliberately weak and vulnerable. Hell, Esme didn't even help Unity much! If Grey Moon shows what should happen to low capability characters, The Triplets instead showed how far one could still make it with the right choices, actions, and attitude, although we did hit a few points where characters were like "we're going to have to kill old ladies aren't we?" that probably protected them just as much. There were just some fun little moments to be had with them too, like imagining one in charge of a train or them being supportive of Jigglypuff. They didn't find as much music everywhere as you might expect, but if you watch the end of the movie, they know to act when its life or death rather than play songs, and there were moments like Rouge trying to bring Esme back with odd music. I feel like since Doomrider killed WALL!! with a drink I've been more reticent to do pulling over to do un-Brawly things for no good reason, but things like the train concert early on or Gran's story-telling picnics and their oddly hypnotic nature have still allowed these to come up without having to pull over death and fiting unrealistically. Lastly, we have BK whose game I only played AFTER the Brawl, and Donut County was even my reward to myself for writing all this! Did I find it a fitting reward? Guess you'll have to read The Game Hoard review to find out :V BK though is a really fun different type of character from Sheep, and while I think the game needed to find more uses for its hole mechanic, the Brawl was a good spot for it. It did small things like limit Moltar in that battle but also could become big enough to drop the biggest Brawler, but basically the moment it got so big it would have to remove BK from the picture soon or at least force him to close it or otherwise lose it. The raccoon invasion was definitely less necessary than the Shrapnel one, but it added an extra dose of chaos and let the hole more believably grow when it was time for its big moment. I mention in Borodan's section my confusion with how the hole works, and after playing Donut County it was, as expected, not quite the same as the game's version, but I didn't want it to permakill and the Donut County wiki really has sparse details in general on its nature and all. I know the game version well enough now, but this version still has secrets to share that Sheep gave me a peek at. Perhaps the most fun part of the hole was writing Trashopedia though, although I maybe went for a bit more fun gags than the "a raccoon wrote this" direction the game favors. I did read plenty of trashopedia stuff before writing some, but especially considering how I wouldn't get to do it too often, I kept individual instances limited to their own running gags rather than more spread out things like BK's bird suspicions from the game. BK's personality is also pretty interesting. He's definitely a little in his own world, hence his pre-fite appearance being mostly negative towards him, and while he hit the same note of talk limitations every Brawler faces, I made sure to get some of that lingo in where I could! Being just a raccoon besides still gave him some interesting movement options and made him a believable kill for being 2Spooked to death, especially since his wacky web-connected mind seemed fit to buy the oddity of Viola's claims the hole was haunting him. I did want to vote for BK for being such an interesting departure for Sheep and one with a distinct voice and all, but he still did about as much as I could have hoped, only things like me wanting to write more Trashopedia making me wish for more.

STEEL KOMODO
Let's begin with ELEANORE since she was sort of the head of a loose alliance after all. Her entry form said she might try and make alliances, but I wasn't sure there was a lot of characters who would gel with a drill instructor type, most resisting browbeating tactics and the characters who wouldn't like maybe Voyd weren't Brawling! Maybe someone like Kisha could be, but she was already caught up in Sonia's web. However, we were also told Eleanore is in the Brawl for kicks, so she probably wouldn't approach the situation with her usual harsh edge, and since we were seeing more of Eleanore's unguarded side around the time, it felt natural enough to give her some edge like how she talked to Taserface as well as organizing a loose alliance since she could hit both her in for fun angle and leader angle. The Taserface scene was primarily there because I figured people might expect the Ravage angle that was prevalent early in the year to crop up but it had been fading by this time on top of her brawl approach. Eleanore is super tall! I think that's a bit odd to keep in the head as I wrote, but she also had mostly long range tactics with Boomer so that didn't ever really hit a point for inaccuracy even if I had forgotten. The armor she was noted to be wearing I made a big effort to remember even though it didn't factor in much. Narration mentionted it, art sort of has it, but I knew I'd kick myself if I left it out. With a character like Eleanore who is sort of based on a licensed character but not, I do wonder if I should go check out the original character, but also not knowing about them could allow me to better represent this character rather than potentially slipping into outside knowledge. At first I was worried LUPINRANGERS might hit on this as I did my research on them, mainly because I remember going outside the RP wheelhouse when I wrote a fite with the Rainbow Line, although I'll probably make sure I know the pilots of vehicles in the future for fites like that! Anyway, I made sure the three Lupinrangers had appeared in civilian form in RP first, and much like the Federation Force, having to write them in the Brawl made sure I can now tell you the real identities of the Lupinrangers with no problem. The Lupinrangers were denied their swords for entry despite my earlier statements about "what you can hold at once" approach to weapon stuff... but they're also a team entry, which follows different rules, and they have zord shooting guns that can become a megazord! In fact, already with just what they have there I was really wanting to do so much with them that I really don't think I could have truly done unless they were a late game situation. I really wanted to use the Dial Fighter full forms more because you're adding three flying machines to the Brawl, and the brief fite with them I did want to keep going longer or keep them more involved in other stuff while like that. Still, I wanted Lupin Kaiser in there too, and I was searching the Brawl for assists they could kill before going down but none sang to me. The little guy they needed to use to become Lupin Kaiser is a noted trickster and uncooperative and I definitely considered some reference to that, but at the point it became relevant it seemed like a pace-breaking pullover to suddenly start having him act up. He was cooperating this time around! I also made sure that, even though the narration called them Kairi, Touma, and Umi, we never had that appear in any way that could be understood by characters so their identities are preserved. Much like the Argyris Sisters, their post of the Brawl where they fell originally had them go one by one until I decided to have them all fall at once. Touma and Umi were essentially beaten before killed anyway, just the true KO happened only a bit later. I did also consider things like how the Lupin Kaiser might be piloted by others or maybe by the rangers swapping places, but Sentai rules are kind of ridiculous at times as we saw with Cornwind's one plot where sometimes Sentai guys can only hurt Sentai monsters and I didn't want to dive into that minefield and make an error, so Lupin Kaiser instead became a hunk of broken metal with no further potential. Stealing Magolor's crown was to hit into their thief angle, there wasn't a lot of "treasure" in play otherwise save maybe the element gems, but they had something to succeed with in the crown. I know some of their "thieving" wasn't literaly in that they wanted the win and all, but this is still a big stage so they'd want to show off like they did with the Pink Panther. ROBIN was a get I never expected despite wishlisting him often! I just figured he was in the past. Funny thing is he might be one of my best characters in Smash Ultimate these days, and I definitely drew mostly from built in Smash knowledge for things on how he'd use the Levin Sword or his magic tome. Levin Sword had a small life beyond Robin as well just as a useful sharp implement, but perhaps the bigger case of long life outside the user was Robin adopting Cyrus's book. Mixed with the nanomachine suit giving him flight, Robin was a more adaptable mage with a bigger bag of tricks, although perhaps having so many meant his Fire Emblem magic was lesser seen than him getting creative with his suit, Cyrus's book, and the sword. I actually considered whipping out flight sooner, but I didn't want to shed the robes immediately either. The Omnus magic also gave him pretty much license to do that bag of potential other Omnus users like Jonesy have tapped into before, but it also wasn't his main focus so it wasn't going for anything absurd or abnormal compared to what a character like David would do. Instead, it was just more in his pocket and more than I even expected when I wishlisted Robin! He was the technical winner of the lotto even when I rolled just one for fun, so this would have been his Brawl no matter what, although I bet if he hadn't gotten in it might be some time before we get a chance to see him again as a potential Brawler. Naturally with his original history of just being named Tactician in RP I emphasized that part of his planning, especially since it made him more distinct from Cyrus and KAMEN RIDER BUILD. One thing about Kamen Riders and other transformation characters is finding the room for them to do their shifts, and I really can only make fun of their length or them getting interrupted so many times. So instead, Build was specifically mentioned as trying to do his bottle changes quicker and more fluidly in a fite partially so he didn't have to pull over and interrupt his flow and partly so I could really plunge into that lovely list of forms I was given. Funny thing, when I told RainbowDash she would be drawing RocketPanda she pictured something very different before I quickly clarrified what I meant! She did a very good job with the Kamen Rider too, since those suits are often busy with lines and protrusions and junk so simplification is often needed. She's always been one to put in the details like that, sometimes to her detriment though when it comes to speed. When I first heard the form name PenguinSkater I naturally assumed ice skater, but when it was made apparent he uses a skateboard it seemed less fit for ice battles than initially imagined! I don't think he ever really got near the ice side after all was said and done despite still having room to use his two new forms. I didn't do any mixing and matching of forms partly because the Kamen Rider wiki isn't very helpful in describing them and partly to emphasize the ones I was noted he would use. Again, late game stuff might have made me push but here I wanted to show us the potential of his different forms and touch on the ones we haven't seen much before, hence why some like the ones he used in his fite against Vince previously were underrepresented compared to new hotness or ones that still could have seen more play. He's definitely sort of Brinechar-ish in the regards I kept popping back to the pastebin of his forms to think of what he would use in a certain situation, and some like LionCleaner I couldn't resist the strangeness of. His fite with the Skeleton King was inevitable, but I do think maybe it took a bit too long to get to it by virtue of the standings. At the same time though, I didn't really have a good reason for him to abandon that quest, and while it had a few moments of intersection like Borodan coming over or Decima sniping, I definitely wanted it to happen since it was his goal for entering! A lot of clear goals from SK cast to guide me this year! I did wonder how the King should go down to him though, since it had to be something impressive and new to really sell he's adapted to the fite. And so, Dawn became that angle, Build using his ally effectively as a new tactic he couldn't really try on Ostarion before. One another critique of the Kamen Rider wiki, they really need to elaborate on weapon powers and finishing moves more! Youtube has a few to watch but it really keeps my potential back when it's just a part of a list instead of having a brief summary. Build's actually been in a lot of fites looking back and his bottles really keep him fresh. Another small touch I made sure to do was him losing his bottle but immediately logging them in his head so he could use them later. Of course now post-brawl he's lost a lot more, but in the moment he was able to retrieve LionCleaner! Never called him Vent this Brawl for some reason, think it was just part of my general weird name stuff like with Patty and Sun Shang. NEEKO is an adorable character and fun too! I had no idea Strong Tomato was from League of Legends rather than an SK original until I looked into Neeko voice lines and such to get her voice down. Makes the strong tomato part of the Brawl work for those outside of our bubble though! In as much as it can I guess :V It's become a big part of her memetic identity around here though and I didn't want to just throw it in, but the idea of the Joy impersonation paying off with a meaningful echo of it was a fun way to make their fite with Vince more interesting. Her shapeshifting was a big consideration in who she would face, the whole fact she helped Joy fite Vince coming as an evolution from the idea of the Llarness impersonating her and all that. Sho'ma was a bit more difficult to implement though. I understand it well enough but I didn't want to go in-depth with her descriptions of it to avoid maybe stepping on an unknown landmine of what the sho'ma can and cannot show. Her image split ability I literally described as Mirage from Apex Legends in my notes and used it a lot like a player would in that game. Feints, misdirects, and admittedly how you'd probably do it in LoL although I expect there's also more false retreates with it there instead. Many MOBA characters have a few abilities built in so I can always reach into the bag and pull something different out if need be, but things like the blossoms bursting to chain people only really came up in situations I made for them to happen because otherwise Brawlers wouldn't cluster all too much. The Joy alliance was built in and gave Neeko a way to stay active despite her having the powerset of a sneakier character, but she still got in her sneak tactics as well and lost when they couldn't help her against someone like Cirno who is just fit for flushing out people with overwhelming abundance of ice and snow. Neeko was killed by her specifically just because Neeko is so precious I didn't want that guilt on other people! I know she's a fiter and all but she's been shown to be very vulnerable but also super friendly, so besides mean people or goal-focused individuals who knew it had to happen, it felt like an idiot getting upset over a weird thing felt like the right way to remove her from the picture when it was time to happen. She's probably my favorite of SK's current cast and I'm glad she got the farthest of his dudes since she does have the kind of fun attitude I latch onto. I would have even liked her to win maybe! Not sure how I'd do it but I mean, I did vote for her, although at the same time, I didn't really expect my votes to win.

IVELCHILD
We all know I gotta talk about NEPTUNE first. I do think I could have had a better feel for ivel's version of her if she had put in more of an appearance before the Brawl. I do have the outside research I did on her, but I also worry that perhaps the clips of her highlight the memeyness and funnier moments rather than the heart of the character... although maybe ivel will focus on the memeyness too? Things like her stuff after Brawl have been pretty silly so far so maybe I'm worrying too much. I definitely wanted to do goofy stuff with her though like her moment of being stripped and having her lean on the fourth wall a bit like referencing the KO shot without it obviously being a callout to the art. KO shots definitely have some presence in the RP universe because they are the flashy finishers after all! A video ivel sent me by PM did definitely help with understanding what her powers looked like, and I was honestly a bit surprised most of them were "sword swing in a certain way". Considering she could become a full on jet I expected more off the wall or tech stuff, but she did have things like the sword she could drop from above to complete the threeKO pic she was a part of. She also got to be part of a mutual KO so Nep was really reaching into the odd KO angles! I didn't really realize Nep is a lot like the phrase Smurf until it basically came to the point I wrote it in, but we probably didn't see too much of Nep verbs because of the quick action focus. Maybe if she fought a goofier character longer they'd Nep it up more, but besides intersecting some with Cirno she was facing people who weren't necessarily serious, but were... mostly Hooded Pitohui characters? Jeeze ivel, way to pick on the newer guy ;P I definitely feel like Neptune is a character with long legs, and I don't just mean the Purple Heart form! I mean she could come back to the Brawl and probably have new powers from her other games or whatever to keep her fresh, more jokes to tell, and so on. Getting no Gino was a surprise because I was kinda hoping he'd win some time soon, but Neptune could be a new consistent entry to make up for it. I have no problem with the way ivel RPs, but I do think that Neptune and Cirno really could be friends if they met and talked outside of the way they did in the Brawl. Dumb fun girls! ALDEBARAN came back for this year and at first I was worried for him. He has a few skills to play with, but with Ikki gone he was on his own and usually returning Brawlers don't get too much love votewise unless they're doing a specific thing, and he was just back for another go. However, I think this was definitely a better year for him in many ways! Tying him to the loose alliance was a great thing for him, and he was a huge part of their support when needed. He was the muscle despite having things like a support shield and the Cosmo blast to make him even more useful than that, and he made it far enough he even contributed to taking down Lupin Kaiser. This was definitely a Brawl where he got around and made his mark even if his direct kills weren't much. Sometimes you just got to get in there and find your niche to really leave a big mark, and I was happy to give the big guy a push since he is one of the ivelchars I'm most fond of. He's a big friendly dude, and those three traits all made him easy to work with here as I focused on connecting characters and using team tactics more than usual this Brawl. His death was even tied to him being on his own which removed the methods he had used to get that far, mainly cooperation and proper application of his abilities rather than rushing in like some sort of male cow. ALMARIC AND KNUD were the surprise deep run from ivelteam though. I've liked them since they hit the scene and I believe I voted for them in the Minor Character Melee, where originally the winner could have been given free entry to the Brawl before I had to veto the idea since it might encourage people reinterpreting what a minor character was to slip in someone to the big event. These guys still got their time in the sun here though, and Knud really went in on the trap angle. In fact, I kind of wish I had kept going with it! I didn't want the amount of materials to be an issue so Timbersaw's mad cutting became an easy way to explain that away, and that way, Knud could participate in fites he wasn't even truly involved in. I did consider having more laying around after his death or just popping up as surprises during unrelated battles, but I felt these interruptions might be a little odd, especially since he was noted to favor the ice side which slowly lost popularity perhaps in part because of the traps! Also because a giant hole went through and probably took a lot of snow and traps down into it. Still, Knud had a good list of traps to draw on and I had fun trying to conceive of strategies for them, strategies around them, and the ones that were good for sudden appearance like the fear trap that Taserface hit. Almaric was in a bit of a spot though. He had healing to keep the two healthy and Knud had his hammer so he could fite effectively in close range, but Almaric's fireball focused tactics could only be stretched so long and so wide it felt like. I guess that is the issue of a minion being upgraded to character without the skill expansion, but I ended up cooking up a way to use sense magic very effectively, that being to unlock the magic wand's power! Maybe Harp made a direct reference to what this magical girl item could be or it's meant to directly be from some source, but I didn't have that info and felt it would be more fun to really emphasize the MAGICAL GIRL elements. This was clearly ment to be used by some bubblegum ribbon little lady hero despite its axe parts, and so when Almaric got it, he basically tapped into the style of magical girls like Star Butterfly from Star vs. The Forces of Evil, to the point he even opens up with puppy magic like Star did in her maybe first episode. It was definitely meant to contrast this evil warlock kind of guy with the happy sparkling powers of PreCure kind of stuff, but it was so powerful and useful he knew he had to suck it up to stay in the battle, especially after Knud got killed by pop-up ads. Speaking of, I really wanted to sneak in a meme pop-up in there but couldn't think of any or ones that wouldn't be too awkward to slip in. Maybe ads for something like FarmersOnly.com but then why Knud saw them would be odd, so I went with the more well-known templates. Back to Magical Girl Almaric though, it really let him expand near the end, begrudgingly tapping into whatever Lisa Frank imaginings I could hit on for him to use. He still did a lot as himself like killing Viola and supporting Knud against Biscotti and Fay before then, but I bet after he's gonna stay far away from magical girl stuff from now on! You just can't unsee that giant baby who made me crack up when I first saw how RainbowDash did it. SUN SHANG AND ZHURONG I did dig into their Dynasty Warrior wiki pages to learn more about and... wow, there was almost TOO MUCH detail, I felt like I might not be representing them right by drawing on it! Mostly, I felt like ivel would probably reference more of it if I was meant to, and while I read on things like their special moves, I kept their uses small and not directly saying "hey this is her special move" for things like Zhurong's fire attacks. The idea of breaking that boomerang was something I really liked, especially since it let a double KO happen... ivel apparently getting two of those this year! Mainly happened here though because the low placement meant she could wipe out a team member like Miyu without hurting the rankings and after the pre-fite rivalry was established, it felt like a fun way to die with both of them actually happy to be killing the other but not too upset they died, since Zhurong definitely seems to be a good personality match for the Lynx. Sun Shang definitely did more fiting in her time in the Brawl, but having Zhurong trying to pull her way out of a hole gave her part of the fite almost its own little setting with different things to play with like throwing out the grenades and using the limited space to her own advantage with her big ol' weapon. Maybe if it wasn't in the forest area she might have thrown it more, but it was still an awesome fiery club. Sun Shang's fiting I feel like I basically imagined Tira from Soul Calibur with sort of Lynette from Soul Calibur movements, the dancy sort of fiting but with twirling of ringed blades. Sure I've seen some of both ladies in Dynasty Warrior vides, but at the same time, unless I've played them I don't think their styles would ever be so built into my brain I could whip out complete attack copies. One last thing on Sun Shang though was another case of me insisting on one style of name. I know Sun Shang isn't her full name, and I know Sun could work as an abbreviation, but the middle felt the right amount to specifically mean her without spilling into being too long!

THE DELETER
Considering how some of our previous champions have done, THE SKELETON KING made it pretty far! He got all the way to 41st place, right in the middle of the pack, so it wasn't a dramatic drop or anything, just not quite the same heights as before. It really feels pretty believable that he'd have this big target on him but he shows his strength in getting that far, although most of his battle was with Build and his allies. The fact he held them off so long though is of course impressive in its own right even though we didn't get to read about it until it picked up in importance. After the Deb drama last year about the skeleton stuff this year I kept his reanimation to no entries, and since we had plenty of dead weirdos like the owls, flying monkeys, shrapnel, raccoons... it wasn't much of an issue! Having flying skeletons also shook up his kit a bit this time, because looking at him on his own, he has a very small range of basic abilities to pull from compared to Build's new filled-to-bursting power options. He still has the strength to put up a good fite of course and he was giving Build a run for his money despite not being filled with souls like last time, although having Shrapnel and all also meant I could still fill his tanks pretty quickly. The Build-Ostarion rivalry definitely did mean he couldn't go out and find new prey for his time with us, but he already had the previous Brawl to really show us his power and strength and his victory lap actually had an angle with that rivalry rather than some repeats. His pre-fite angle was perhaps the hardest thing to think of though, since I really did just imagine him living it up and relishing the title right up until he lost it. We haven't seen him in a long while either so I couldn't really give an update on his kingdom or anything either, but since he has been more goofy since his days of straight villainy ended, the small showing didn't feel too farfetched. AIKO was sort of bound to stick with Giselle until one fell, and I'm not too surpirsed it was Aiko to go down first from just like, a logical standpoint. Giselle is Death and made for war, Aiko is, under a lot of the anger and Persona powers, a woman, so even before results I expected the Giselle freakout more than the aimless Aiko. Nyarlathotep, besides being typoed so often I worried about using that one in the Brawl in case the typo was somehow intentional or something, had a lot of room to be fun. The acid in his body hole, the uncooperative nature, that scream that can get louder and louder, he's a crazy Persona and gives Aiko a lot more to work with. Things like Joker in Smash definitely helped me write Aiko using Persona powers more, primarily because I could be like "oh that's his B forward special". Working in Mementos was perhaps the hardest thing of her though because I know I wanted to, but I didn't see much reason why she would leave Giselle or why Giselle would break too far away from her. Even when they did get separated prior to its use it didn't feel pressing for her to enter it, and what she could do there was another question. We still got brief entry along with Rennie, someone who I felt was safe entering without too much craziness, although maybe if Aiko wasn't tied so closely to Giselle we could have seen something like a shadow battle in the heart of a Brawler. I definitely did consider some sort of Nyarlathotep kill where someone was pushed into his hole to dissolve, I think that might have been the OG plan for Robin, but I decided to emphasize her a bit more, even if it took Jason calling out to Aiko to make her capitalize in the situation rather than favoring the kind of hit and run tactics that seem like the stuff you'd do in the Undercity. I mean, yeah, when fiction writes a character getting mugged and then killing the guys it's meant to be a "they're strong" moment, but if you're steeped in that world you can't stop to fite EVERY disposable thug! She's had a lot of "too late" to help moments in RP and I didn't want that to happen here, even when she got separated she was trying to hold her own or get back to Giselle to prevent that. BABA required me to research the game a bit more than I already had, opening up a youtube video that was like, part 23 of someone's Let's Play... and then going to find a much earlier part because they were deep in the big stuff by then! Del's list of Baba words guided a lot of its actions, but at the same time, we've seen its RP use not always totally line up with the words and their interactions there. I definitely considered using things like the word that makes a bunch of Babas, but the idea for a little Baba godbeast felt like he was already using his big disruptive card. I actually kept Baba Soul relatively subdued since I didn't think people wanted an outright malicious Baba, even though the crown probably would corrupt him enough to justify it, but I also wanted the breed of godbeast to not compromise what makes Baba Baba. I even made sure it didn't use too many design elements from its form in its attacks, partly so I could design it after to look monstrous but not too monstrous. Mostly, Baba Soul was there to free up the cool word interaction. Considering you have to push word cubes so much to activate things, I couldn't really justify it being too fast at times or too thick in a battle while still being able to manipulate them. That's partly why it starts off so support oriented and it takes things like Baba Ranger to get it more active in a fite. Being able to fire world effecting words though gave a lot of space for it to hit people with the rougher words like Melt. Which words Baba would bring into existence were carefully considered too. There was perhaps too much thought and caution in it if I'm being honest, but I didn't want to lose the simple appeal of Baba in the word fun. Another thing, we really don't have a good feeling for Baba's personality yet besides seeking out fun situations, not sure if we ever will get a deep look at it but hence why its pre-fite show it was acting in its odd way. It wants to do something interesting so it does so, any other motivations or angles unknown to us. It did seek companionship though like with the Lupinrangers since that seems safe to assume. I'm mostly really happy Baba got in the Brawl when it did. The whole BABA is ____ memeish template feels like it might be running dry and I would definitely be reticent to prod it too much if people had gotten tired of it. I do still not know any solutions to Baba puzzles despite watching some of it, mainly because I focused mostly on interactions in the videos, so when I do play Baba I can hopefully approach it free of spoilers... although dodging unmarked spoilers in the chat has been rough V: VINCE  came back and wow did that big suit make him play different. At first I wondered if he would even ever leave the suit to fite as his normal self, but it did come up naturally a few times and it could serve as a pseudo-ally at times. It's power was definitely played up in the entry form and I didn't forget it, but there are a lot of uber-powerful people in the Brawl, and this isn't quite Saxton Hale levels, probably more Regigigas. Vince isn't really ruthless in behavior though so that keeps him from really seeing the bloody potential of this thing to its fullest, but he can sometimes be so deep in his headspace he misses things. Cornwind commented he would think Vince too trope aware to fall for Neeko and Joy's trick that got him killed but... Vince has fallen for a lot in the past, probably mostly as tractor factors and the general flow of one-on-one Kamen Rider fite writing where there's a lot of hero on the backstep stuff before the real fite with a villain where they now have the edge of knowledge and power. I did sometimes forget though that the mech suit wasn't an extension of him, not in a way that it hurt writing, but the whole Taserface fite definitely helped cement in my head that they were separate so later I would be able to make better use of it. Originally, when the super speed power-up ended up in Joy's hands, that speed difference was going to be how Vince noticed something was up, but then I also considered having Neeko's disguise trick be helped by Joy faking slowness. I was definitely tempted to slip into writing more regular Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, but I made sure he got his mech suit back because we've seen that a few times already and it's cooler to get to see the new tricks get their time in the sun, but I still definitely had to get in my love for the chocolate brick power where it adds platforming to a fite so easily. Originally Llarness and Vince were gonna hang around Dawn's group more, hence the pre-fite stuff, but it ended up being they got in other parts of the arena and never got to reconnect. THE GUNSLINGER is perhaps one of the characters I most benefitted from seeing in a pre-Brawl action scene. I already had the stuff down about his fite-focused mind and didn't have to edit his dialogue too heavily to incorporate it, save the more precise mechanical nature of some statements, although I didn't copy the formatting as my general avoidance of formatting for clarity in fites anyway. He did use an economy of words at times though, like how they were trying to take down Hank and he simply said the attacks to use rather than stretching it out, and that was already planned before I got to see him in action again! There were plenty of little considerations to make about him. First, you got to be careful giving me someone whose form can technically be anything! I figured he assumed the human form and wouldn't want to pull away from it too much, such as giving himself a gazillion arms to fire a gazillion guns, but it could have been something if he stuck around long or had a sort of "he's a problem now" scene a la Lupin Kaiser or Baba Soul. His mind devoted to killing and all did make it hard to justify him not just going on a crazy tear... but hey, Hank was in the same spot, so they were destined for each other! I didn't want Gunslinger's death to just be "hey, lucky shot on the projector!" so Hank corrupting it with that weird arm came to be the means, although drawing it made it uglier looking than I saw it in my head. I knew he wouldn't truly ally, but being so focused on the battles meant he had to know the importance of having fewer enemies and the possibilities of team composition, and I think he more than anyone put the "loose" in the loose alliance. He even was the reason it had the explanation of helping when convenient but not committing when they needed to, although the more human sides of Aldebaran and Tressa meant they couldn't help but grow attached through a friendship forged in fire. Gunslinger was good for both keeping Hank busy and injecting some power into a situation like taking down Kalcyon. This is sort of meant to be the consolation prize since I won't likely get Scarlett in the Brawl, although her inclusion was probably more personality-tied and importance-wise, but this isn't a complaint. I think I've said it earlier here but I didn't feel like anyone was a sort of "what to do with this guy" entrant or one I worried about too much, and I think maybe that's why the connections worked well here since my brain was fresh enough to find spots even for a character like The Gunslinger who seemed primed to be a loner with few social connections. TIMBERSAW never used his chakram like ability, I'm sure someone else noticed that! I got way too caught up in the potential of his hookshot-like claw to ever find myself thinking of using that instead, especially considering his enemy choice. I know we were told the mana limits on the Timbersaw suit would hold him back from things like the chakram attack though, but it did make me worry about Conductor taking it near the end. Also, I don't know why I used timbersaw as the entry name and all when Del listed him in the entry as Rizzrack and I've done so before. I blame Dota Auto Chess where every time I watched a video of someone playing it I saw Timbersaw by that name and was like IT'S THE DEL CHAR PICK HIM. The moment I got him I knew the fall side of Winterfall was going to be his domain, although I didn't expect full deforestation until I saw how deep in he got. It actually lead to a bit of a lull in action from him as he didn't really get his kill til the late game. I know the hookshot claw was described as being used for pulling him towards stuff, but it worked so well for pulling things towards him! He did get to stay in motion at least until his focus moments, helping the Skeleton King and even shooting down the idea he was one-minded about the trees. Really, I don't remember if Chao did, but it would be funny if we had the forest marked as his kill, because boy howdy did he really get to go to town! The saws and their inherent power is likely why he faced fiters who could take it like androids and dinosaurs with a lot of skin to spare. Still, you know SOMEONE had to get torn up by them, hence my putting Sue on the ends of the belly saw, aka the one you don't expect to do much damage! Early on I knew holding someone to the saw had to be the kill method just for an interesting change from chainsaw arm stuff. I never really did consider having the goblin himself leave the mech, but I did like acknowledging his space in there and the controls, especially since it would be how Cerato took him down. This was definitely the best Brawl for him to join considering the autumn playground giving to him, so sometimes waiting does work out for these types.

BIG BLUE
We're getting down to the users who didn't have full entrant lists! Big Blue kept things to two, and even though STEVE THE SOCK is the kind of entrant who could very much make me worry in the past and definitely did when it was mentioned first in chat, come Brawl time I was just like "yeah sure I can do stuff with this". I think seeing the snake shape helped a lot since it made it a lot more clear what it could do. A single sock with a face would actually be kinda jank and worrying, but the long length gave it clear movement methods and tactics. Steve's face was an odd consideration though, but I never fully committed to its importance. We get a joke about it having no ears yes, but it does react to the world its in appropriately, even listening to BK at one point. Strangulation was definitely its obvious go-to for a kill and hence the joke with it failing on Moltar, its serial killer side also being why it didn't care about Brawl rules in trying to get a pre-battle kill. It was actually just going to be early Brawl color in the first post before I realized I could make it pre-fite too. Still, even with strangulation being the obvious kill method, I thought of something more interesting both visually and in showing he's hardcore, hence how he ended up killing the Snow Meiser with a sock down the throat choke instead. It was still a constriction of course, just with more steps! It being a sock too I knew I'd want to kill it in a way that was sort of mundane. It put up a good fite before it went down, but Moltar setting it on fire wasn't like some big dramatic attack, he was dripping on it, the sock part biting the creature in the... heel? That face placement does make how Steve looks in battle a question but one that doesn't actually need an answer or reference in the Brawl, since rearing up Cobra style would technically make its face upside down. I think Bree answered what would happen in the chat but I forgot and I know if I go to chat now to look it up I'll stop writing and this blogpost will take even longer to get out! UNITY was actually the more challenging of the two to write, mainly because I again come back the whole "mind control is icky" thing that's come up in RP before. I mean, Del has Midwich and Toinette's mom for weird mind controlly stuff and he was the main objector, but I didn't want to put anyone on edge with how Unity integrated people in the Brawl, hence the careful means of integration. I bet if I didn't have a train full of owls we'd have probably got Shrapnel sooner or something as the sacrificial lambs to let her do her thing while also not making people worry about their characters. Sheep being a bro meant Esme felt like someone I could give, but other than that it was definitely like traipsing into a minefield. I worried Chao might consider integrated people deaths and put them on the scoreboard, I knew some users would be upset if their character didn't go the distance on their own merits... so it became about doing things tactically! Once she starts integrating people, they would be freed before the end of the post, Biscotti the first to show the possibility without her doing much in Unity's control. After that, there was the big moment where Unity starts getting characters like Morgan and Lily in the fold, but Komachi would solve that by the end of the post while also making it clear there wasn't a single Unity left, because at that point even if she killed the owls and aliens, you still have the Goop and Harp chars in her thrall. Soul ripping did the ticket, even if I tried to be careful not to permakill for Komachi's sake and then it became clear Unity was skirting a rule but whatever! It's not a big deal and I'm happy to have Blue in the Brawl even with that allowance made to make it happen. I did remember a few details about Unity, the idea her integrations were meant to be benevolent... but she's in a big death match where the goal is to kill everyone else SO you wouldn't find much of that unfortunately. The thing about her going on benders and losing control during them was thought of, but only really Morgan had the opportunity to offer her that and having Unity pull over and go "let's get drunk after you tried to kill me" felt really dumb. Maybe there were other options to pull them out, but the soul rip worked for a KO method too so it's what I chose. I do remember the integration method of new bodies was kept vague in her entry, but "orally transmitted fluid" really doesn't really give you many new ways to do it. I didn't go full on description to prevent it from being gross still, but she still had to do it mouth to mouth because what else could she do? Spit in an open wind, or down your ear? It didn't seem to be an issue at all to the readers though so that discretion... probably actually paid off. People were weened in on the simpler description so that the reality of it was less of  a surprise, rather than being told outright what was going down and thus encouraging a big reaction. If Unity wasn't in a death tournament maybe we would have seen more stuff from Rick & Morty, but I tried to make her concept work in this context and for this crowd! I hope I did both sides of that coin justice!

RAINBOWDASH
RAINBOW DASH almost missing this Brawl was concerning, and I could have survived on Bree's joke, but I do want to see the streak continue, at least until BBB10 where I think we can all accept a departure then since it does feel like a potential turning point sort of Brawl. RainbowDash the user not having the time to do much art allowed me to escape the usual question of "why am I not drawing more Rainbow Dash brawl art, did she lose?" The Zapp power-up gave some room to keep her fresh. Even with old tornado powers, I knew working in things like more cloud usage than she typically does and a full on hurricane would add some spice to this old war horse. Even when teaming up against the Wicked Witch though RainbowDash still feels pretty separate from other characters, teaming up with Bulk of course but her way forward has been solo or just with an assistant for a long time... maybe that can be changed in the future! Here though it was all about the Power Pony stuff as well as her usual tricks, although I didn't dive into the old wells like super-speed strut. We did get a Rainblow Dry without the namecheck though, and not namechecking certain move is actually becoming more of a writing thing of mine since I got tired of always naming Touhou spellcards when used :V Funnily enough, when the user RainbowDash learned someone was riding Rainbow Dash, she also thought this shouldn't be allowed, so she was very happy that Kaede died for it! Someone should make a line graph of Rainbow Dash's placements sometime just to see how oddly it fluctuates. Perhaps more than anyone she shows the fluctuations of the tractor, because she's been getting a lot of support Brawl wise since BBB3 every year, if not the most because it's still sad she hasn't got it and there are always others to support. JIGGLYPUFF was a long time coming though. I still have no explanation for the running joke of bets on Jigglypuff in real life and I don't think I want one, but here we got her and I was happy to see the jokes get into RP as well. She wasn't destined to go very far I felt and she ended up not doing so, but I got in the singing required and I actually had to correct RainbowDash when she was making her entry. She almost came in with just a microphone and I had to bring up the marker or else we might not get classic anime Jigglypuff shenanigans! It also had plenty of Pokemon moves to pull on, RainbowDash not remembering her old four move limit thing for her Pokemon but remembering its Smash Bros appearance enough to give me the final smash to work in. Gooper bringing up the Rest power from Smash also ensured its appearance, and it happening in the train justified me using it since otherwise I would probably be like "no it would knock the person off the arena surely!". I was very conscious of previous musical entries disrupting the Brawl with their stuff to justify me sidelining guys or conflicts and was also aware that sleep could very well be used to keep people on the floor until needed, but decided against it to specifically avoid that out and we got more interesting team fites for it! The singing still had to happen and Conductor's plan seemed fun enough even if its impact was small, but I also enjoyed me referencing the mechanics for Sing. I didn't want the old ladies to fall asleep, and the joke evolved from there as it didn't impact everyone, although I worried that might reveal the KOMACHI WAS ALREADY ASLEEP joke, a joke I almost had a picture drawn for but decided against it because it would either be simple hands or not as dramatic as I pictured it in my head. DAIPENMON is actually a bit of an interesting case in how it got into the Brawl. Most years I talk to my sisters a few times before the Brawl, send them characters I think they might like to get those brain juices flowing... but this year I wanted to pull back and see what they did without my influence. I mean, we got Jumpluff and Arr in years I was doing the old way so they could go off on their own completely, and Wet Tiger I actively discouraged, but Daipenmon was pretty much the only exception on RainbowDash's part. As I read Bogleech's reviews of Digimon designs I came across a giant penguin and, since RD loves penguins in real life besides that not appearing in ZFRP much, I sent it to her without even thinking of that potential because I knew she would love it, but she immediately pegged it as a potential Brawler, saving the link and everything! There was a joke around Brawl time that she would just enter variants of Ice Bear after I was saying we don't want to Ice Bear this year like we did the year he was shoved in last second when she wanted to sleep, but these three entrants worked well for what they are. Diapenmon actually is probably the reason the titan alliance even exists since he's the only other real collossal entrant beside Borodan. If it was Borodan and the dinos they might not have come together, but we had a giant penguin who needed a place. I ended up using Daipenmon's appearance from some anime episode with some Devimon variants as my point of reference for size, since Gooper's vote post made me worry I might have misjudged it at first. There is a very specific scene where they're in an ice cave and get zapped that I used for my size judgements, but considering Daipenmon's major interactions were with Scrapper, Pest, and a train, I don't think I was in jeopardy of having size problems save that it had to be big enough for things like how Scrapper killed it and the train hitting into it to topple it instead of running it over. I did wish I did more with its ice-maker side, even if that's technically just sending crushed ice out. Besides flying with the popsicles it doesn't really have any weird powers though, neither popsicle containing some strange power to call in. It really is just a huge penguin ice maker with popsicles, although the popsicles gave a good point for Scrapper and Pest to ally since Pest was noted to be weak to sweets and Scrapper would want the metal to build with. Really, it was like they were designed to kill Daipenmon! I kept away from mentioning its Digimon nature some so that it didn't introduce any weird questions like: is it made of data? Can that be used against it? Which the answers are yes and yes, but it's irrelevant since it would never come up to someone who could in the Brawl. It was kind of a slumbering giant mostly, its mobility limited and its alliance actually probably having their woes with coordination mostly because of this lumbering, not-to-bright guy. I do think I should have spent more time considering its insides for the Scrapper fite, maybe made that more detailed and have Daipenmon turn its machinations to fite back, but that's probably more what I would do if climbing Daipenmon was its own fite or an RP battle.

CUSTARDKITTENSROCK
Originally, CKR considered entering Calendar Man as her requisite DC villain character this year, but she was disappointed to learn he had no powers. She was definitely thinking old fashioned Calendar Man too instead of the more Hannibal Lecter sort of version people like these days, but no powers meant she kept searching. Funnily enough, when I learn of weird super villains I send them to her, but despite joking she would enter them, she didn't have one ready entry day and went searching online for one. We already broke away from just DC with Eye-Scream last year, so HELLCOW wasn't a departure from the odd super-villain formula ultimately. I originally considered having Hellcow lurk in the trees of the autumn forest, but Gooper pointed out the ice caves were better and I realized maybe the space in the artifical forest was too risky for it to be in, especially with timbersaw going ham. Hellcow ended up in the caves and took some time to get going because of it, capturing Kaede before it was time to fite partially so it had some presence before its big moment. It was depicted as a force to be reckoned with when it did appear though, able to overpower Ren and Peko both and convert them into children of the night. It wouldn't kill anyone ultimately, but as we've seen in RP so far, that cow's having one of the longest lasting effects of the Brawl, so maybe CKR will be happy learning that! Sheep was disappointed the cow didn't turn into milk mist, and I did consider it and almost did it, but I think I had a brief misgiving about whether or not that would mean Peko and Ren would become milk mist? And maybe Bree and Chao wouldn't be keen on that! I abandoned that idea though but never corrected the mist moment when it was time to write it. Other than that, I could have used the bat and wolf forms more for both Hellcow and the new vampires, but I did want to focus on that absurdly named superbovine strength as well, hence why it could put up a fite and was hard to hold with Ren's telekinesis. It was also made super durable because really, vampires are goofy in modern fiction. Originally written with more weaknesses than you can count, we've stripped them away more and more, but luckily Hellcow's information online mentions it's tied to Dracula and lays out a few known weaknesses, mainly Hellcow died by the sun once before, and it was originally meant to be killed by Kaede so a sun kill seemed an easy fit for eliminating it without going "oh but was its head cut off and its body set on fire and a stake through its heart and this and that" and puhlease, even Ven got in on adding these modern angles to vampires when he was usually so insistent on original myths and texts! Let your vampires fear holy crosses and such, you can be Superman but make sure the kryptonite is there too! I'm really not that bugged by it, just mostly worried about every vampire kill in the Brawl that someone might be like "that wasn't enough". Moving on, MR. MUCUS was actually the first Brawl entry confirmed by CKR. Originally she said she would have some angle about using characters from advertising and Mr. Mucus was the first that came to mind for her, but then entry day come and she told me she didn't find anything interesting in her searches. I certainly had ideas for her and could do that angle myself if I was in her boots, I have whole books about product mascots! But she spread a wider net than that, with only Mr. Mucus representing the original angle. Mr. Mucus was always kinda doomed to not be much of a fiter in the Brawl, but The Curse really seemed the best way to get him in and doing stuff. I feel like everyone was like "yup, he's gonna join them" when they saw him. He's an antagonist in the commercials after all! And you know we're using the old design rather than the sort of 20-something T.J. Miller versions from more recent commercials, although I considered telling CKR he should have the power to assume a New Zealand accent when I saw a modern commercial from there. Mostly it was going to be about him making people feel icky, but he ended up with a few things he could work like fiting equally low power characters like the Triplets, or Rouge at least. His body being made of boogers also gave me room to say he was oddly durable, since none of it really seemed vital save things like his head. Does he have booger organs? Probably not! I worried boogers might gross people out with their prevalence and, well, me not mincing words about the mucus, but he was kind of a slime guy mostly. He did things a slime would do like stick to stuff, he just also came with a stuffy nose. He probably wouldn't have been as interesting without The Curse connection and was pretty minor even there, but considering his oddness at least he found a niche to slip into. TOOTHY I went from worrying about when CKR mentioned him to realizing his potential. Sure the toothbrush at most could be fashioned into a shiv if that was all he had going for him besides, well, being a beaver, but the Happy Tree Friends world informed an ability she gave to him. That being, he could bounce back even from serious injury! He had to come back from those ultra violent videos somehow after all, but at the same time, I made sure it wasn't full on revival or anything. Maybe he did revive after Brawl with the powers, but he was most assuredly dead at one point, whereas having his skeleton removed was something he could bounce back from! Killing what was essentially unkillable was tough to figure out though. Something like Disintegrate could have done it of course, but I wanted Meat Boy to get a kill, and I cooked up a way quite literally when many people keened on fire's constant murderuous potential. Consistent damage could overcome the healing, and so Meat Boy gets Heat Miser to set the beaver on fire so he has no break to recover during. Kalcyon offered other potential means yeah, but you can't just say one way it ca be done and then do that! That's too predictable! Although the fact they considered the train engine when Toothy was first on the chopping block made the fire end pretty obvious. He was never really going to get the vote strength to go far, but I made sure he had stuff to do before dying, like being hardcore in killing owls and contributing in killing Jigglypuff, since a CKR characters basically has to kill a RainbowDash character by order of the king these days. She usually gets the reverse done to her character but RD's entry count and entry situations didn't set up for that. Toothy was actually almost rejected at first when CKR told me about a character named Mondo with an image of Toothy that didn't have his beaver tail or teeth, mainly because I was trying to tell her the character didn't exist... but she was trying to lazily tell me Toothy and finally said the name after the scrutiny. HOT DOG MONSTER was definitely the weird out of the blue entry this brawl. I mean, Steve the Sock sort of represented Blue and had time to simmer in the public conscious before he entered despite being weirder, but Hot Dog Monster was so out of nowhere it felt like that ridiculous entry that, well, CKR is usually the source for! No one would have said before Flubber would Brawl, but she did, and she picked this random monster from a single episode of Adventure Time as her pick. I think she was googling something and came across him because I have no idea how she'd think of him otherwise. He really doesn't do much in the show, but he does get his brain ripped out, hence Dana talking about that weakness. I almost had it show in the Brawl somewhere too but had no real reason to bring it up, especially after considering the Hot Dog Monster dying to people picking it apart was a good way to hopefully tag multiple people as its killer to hand out some early KOs. Also, because SOMETHING had to die under that train, might as well be the fragile food creature. Being Dana's mount gave it more meaning too, rather than some rampaging creature in the Brawl which it basically was pre-pre-fite show and that's how she adopted him. Eating him some was bound to come up and the ketchup had to be sprayed after it was a noted weapon, but unless I really dug in, it pretty much did most of what it could do in its appearance, save perhaps a really gross concept of it eating someone and being pressed between all those weiners and buns. Maybe Morgan would have liked that...

HOODOODOGHOUSE
I didn't dare to dream we'd get him even when he appeared around Brawl time, but HoodooDoghouse did indeed join the fun! He's had some interesting creatures in the past and I always wanted to see what he would cook up for the biggest fite, but I think he was mostly coming to us with previous ideas rather than ones made for the Brawl specifically. Maybe next year we will see ones designed with the Brawl in mind, although maybe Pest was created for it since he only made one more entrant after learning what the Brawl was and seemingly had to create them from scratch? Either way, damn his art is good! It reminds me of something I can't put my finger on but those character designs are top notch stuff and look wonderful, the kind of thing a 90s grossout franchise would kill for! SCRAPPER was his first and I did see the list of his scrap tools and realize I couldn't include them fullsale since they go way over the weapon limitations, but at the same time it was also very easy to justify their presence despite that as he could forge them in his tummy from scrap taken during the Brawl, and he had a very large scrap source from Daipenmon. Hell, even taking Gigan's tail was likely enough to exempt me from needing to say where the scrap could be coming from considering its size, although I did fudge things a bit since there was no noted concrete and he still had a concrete weapon. He could still have stuff in his gut already! In fact, it would be weird if he didn't! I knew I wanted to make use of that stovepipe hat even if he was huge and wouldn't have too many chances to spray it at people... even though he could have bent down I guess... But still! It got in, and probably the only idea that didn't really was the concept of him putting someone in that gut, although maybe not for the kill. Conductor could probably even fit, but the flow of the battle favored some distance between them so he could do the whole turning the saw on Scrapper's head for the kill. Conductor was perfect as a survivor of the rat's infectious diseases though. I knew it could be easy to toss those aside without most people noticing, but I bet Hoodoo would! So Conductor was out of play for a while as he reeled from it, but his durable nature meant he could take it! Really, people should mention that when voting for him in DYM! I was also not sure if Scrapper could talk despite assuming at first he could, originally he and Pest would talk in the pre-fite but then it became silent miming instead while Pest could for sure talk. The Dump does feel like a place where everyone's against each other though, but they made for a good match against the big boys without having to say they were directly helping out, more just having alligned interests. PEST I wanted to fite on headless from the moment I read he could, but it did make his KO pic hard to read since RainbowDash blotted out where his head would be with blood rather than drawing a headless body. I don't feel like she got the info wrong at all, it was just how she chose to represent it. Unlike Scrapper, Pest's pesticides, poisons, and infectious stuff was not just an aspect, but his main attacking method, and I've mentioned it before, if Sue didn't have that syringe gun, we could have been in a bind! I didn't have to underplay the effects and even got to kill Jaz with them to show they're not to be messed with, but Sue had the answer to letting our guys fite on with these two dirty boys. Pest's food weakness came up more than I expected when first reading it, it being one of those weaknesses I'd skim over since it doesn't have broad applicability... and then it did. Even Jaz's potatoes worked well with it! I did have fun with Pest's roachy nature for what I could, but I maybe should have used those grenades more, especially after his death as maybe a means for Sue to fite more or some other character to stumble across greater power like maybe Elvis Impersonator or Kaede. I never tapped into some of their effects either like the halucination ones, but it was less because Pest was underutilized in some way and more Pest was doing a lot and facing many foes at once, his attempts to use grenades failing or interrupted at different points. I'd definitely buy a small plastic figure of this guy though, even if I did have to rupture his poison tank so he could have more involved close range battles with his close range favoring foes.

And I believe that finally puts us at the end! It definitely took a while to write this compared to some years, but I want to do RP, The Game Hoard, live life, and other things on top of writing this, so sorry for the delay on account of that stuff and my wavering motivation. After spending so long plugged into the Brawl it was nice to step back, and I'm pretty proud of the end product that is the BBB9! Will it last in my favor? Who knows, but I think there was a lot to learn and carry over into future years to hopefully make those better too.

As always, please feel free to comment here or in the Brawl thread and I'll reply. Maybe you can get some stuff I forgot to write back in the front of my head, or make me consider angles I didn't think of before for the content on offer! Thank you all for reading the Brawl, reading whatever parts of this that interested you, and helping me make this whole big event possible with your contributions, support, and just an amazing community that makes putting all this work into something worthwhile.