Behind the Scenes: Big Bar Brawl 13

 

Frankenstein. Treasure Island. Slaughterhouse Five. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Hobbit. 1984.

What do these books all have in common?

They're shorter than the Big Bar Brawl 13.

Why do I tell you this? Mostly because it made me wonder if I should go out and read some books because apparently it's not too hard to read 100,000+ words in a single sitting! I guess there's the motivating factor involved, and the Brawl certainly isn't comparable in other ways since I don't have to do any legwork establishing characters or whatever. Maybe even how a book is presented makes it more daunting?

Whatever the reason, I'm sure you're wondering why I lead with what looks like a collage of kills. This is actually the fully unedited scan of one sheet of paper I drew on! You'll need to open it in another window to get a good sense of its actual size, but while it looks huge after the scan, many of these images are about the size of your pinky finger. I actually think I drew art smaller this year for reasons I don't know, sometimes I just get in a habit come art time. Some art is drawn bigger, things like the mystery fiter reveal were pretty large. You'll notice in this scan though I struggled figuring out how I wanted to line up Sam's kill on Sugar!

CKR came through with more art than recent years at a full 12, and Gooper's art I tried to make sure it was important stuff! I think Dakota with a Shotgun will haunt me for years now, but it might at least ensure that if I think something is worthy of art, it has a material impact. There has been comments that Natasha didn't get a kill after her big power-up, but I mentioned elsewhere I wanted her to have a strong focus near the end of her team's run even if she doesn't get a kill. Plus, sometimes you got to keep people guessing!

Anyway, let's go right in and start discussing the Big Bar Brawl itself!

UNUSUAL YEAR 13

 

Let's start with, of course, the framing of this Brawl! Very early, pretty much when Whalestrand was being bandied about as a concept, I was asked what kind of arena I might want to use for the coming Brawl. I actually really wanted to do something that focused on ice out on the water at first, the threat of breaking ice beneath the feet of the Brawlers meant to add an interesting element. You'll notice in Brawl arena stuff there are repeated mentions of ice floes out in the water but nothing ever came of them! This was mostly something I put there anticipating I might have use for them, but I think with the Aquatic Alliance the idea never came together. All the water people were on the same side! That was a general theme of the year though, people like the Techies and Aquatic Alliance realizing they'd work better not sabotaging each other and instead focusing their efforts on keeping their counters out of their own way. That comes up with the Snatcher's part in Team Business most apparently!

Still, the ice never came together, but I did like the idea of a seaside Brawl, and the more I thought on it, the more I realized I was basically just wanting Whalestrand, but a Brawl arena. I thought of trying to cook up some similar fishing village nearby, trying to whip up reasons it might be abandoned, but eventually the idea for Guppystrand came together! It was originally a made-to-order arena though, the theme park stuff slowly came together and I almost de-emphasized it because it is rather absurd. I think if it was a theme park from initial conception, we might have seen more use of areas like the roller coaster library, a place that almost exists purely because I wanted rotomcoaster to be a thing! Notably, the water park I worried about adding but then a lot of fiting happened in it even if the water park accoutrements weren't too relevant.

So, after I realized a theme park setting could justify the oddness of basically Whalestrand in miniature, I had to think up a host! Guppystrand the name I think came about as I thought of what to call the city's reduced size counterpart, and then the name Grand Guppy kind of came along with it. I thought up the Grand Guppy mascot well before I had any idea who it could be inside the suit, and you'll notice in Brawl set-up there is a joke that the suit looks like a retooled whale costume. That is mostly because, well, guppies don't have much distinct about them. Their colorful tail is the main attraction but I really didn't feel like drawing a full body image because it kept looking strange, so to excuse my inability to make its "guppy-ness" more clear, we got that joke at my expense! Gooper's art of him in the title card is wonderful though. I love the horizontal arrangement of the title card, I kept it open full Brawl and even put black boxes over characters as they died (which I did in a separate window, so I could still look at them beautiful faces otherwise!) 

 

The Grand Guppy's identity though came about from the simple writing advice that if a character is in a mask, they have to have a reason for wearing it. Usually this applies to the removal being a reveal, and if I wanted the reveal to pack a punch, I had to dig up some character for it! With the anthem moving into retirement my mind went to Jukebox Jaw who hasn't done much after his debut year, so it felt like a perfect little motivation as he tried to be more memorable. I considered him having made the arena just for the brawl, but the theme park idea seemed better as something that was around a bit and failing for some jokes. The joke about him speaking with the voice recordings of Chris Pratt was a pretty quickly formed idea early on. Probably around the time I realized he needed some way to communicate, I couldn't resist the running joke that Chris Pratt is voicing everything, and while it may date the Brawl, I also have said before I don't mind a few marks of the time for each Brawl. It makes it interesting to remember where we were then! Still, I did have to edit some writing at times as I almost forgot the Grand Guppy's voice lines had to be pre-recorded for this concept to work!

One thing about Guppystrand I wavered on is the so-called "Foody Row" and whether the restaurants should have anything in them. I considered it and maybe if someone like Ryuji really went far they might have, but it ended up being a case where I didn't want to introduce any extra tools to the situations drawn to such buildings. Like, Mutsumi fiting Tricky with just what she had was more interesting than finding a convenient building to turn the tide. I do think I could have got more use out of the bar but at the same time was a bit hesitant about roughing up the place too much. It being a facsimile of Journey's End and its lighthouse did make me worry being too harsh might start to draw parallels to the real location, and I actually completely left off the boardwalk Bree is brewing up specifically to avoid the whole "beloved place destroyed" factor. It's also why early on I made sure to mention many actual locations weren't reproduced, and I was reticent to make the roller coaster in the Library of Alexandria specifically but figured it would have been reworked so much as a ride it felt different than just a standard reproduction. I did have bigger plans for like, a battle atop the roller coaster rails initially, but it just never seemed to line up with who I sent there! The lighthouse being rolled across the arena was a very early idea though, but I made it a helter skelter so it was again a bit further away from the one near our restaurant.

The Mystery Fiter pick this year was definitely meant to align with the now missing Brawl anthem. I don't really miss the anthem, it did feel a little odd leaving it out, but it was never too big a thing anyway after it outlived its purpose of being a bit of set-up for things like Mac Tonight or extra characters to kill. I usually try to pick a character I expect many users will recognize, and the Purple People Eater song just came across my memory one day and I realized it would be a perfect Mystery Fiter. It wasn't the first pick though. Gooper mentioning the sentient snowmen who died in the Brawl stands so long ago made me consider having Bad Mr. Frosty from Clay Fighter be there to avenge his family, and I later shifted it instead to Jack Frost the serial killer snowman from some horror films, but I didn't want to include him and then potentially learn like, in his films he's actually really skeevy or something. Ultimately, no silly callback there, and with Alexandra present, I knew I had to follow through on his inclusion! A purple person to eat! Well, if the tractor had been more accommodating, but I still got them fiting in. The One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater did have a movie I have blurry memories of from childhood and that's where its design comes from specifically, although I had it be more dangerous than the gentle soul found in that film.

Old One Eye's inclusion lines up with the odd tractor luck of this 13th Brawl. Spy was the first to submit a Secret Fiter so he was tractor spot #1 when it was time to roll, and it lands on him, gives him his second secret fiter in a row, and even ends up matching the Purple People Eater in terms of eye count! Old One Eye actually has an unusual pair of pincers beneath his spike arms that don't get much use in the Brawl, mostly because I had too much fun with the piercing limbs instead. Luckily for a Warhammer character there's very easy lore to digest on Old One Eye, a video I watched with 40 "facts" about him was basically just reading out what there is on him, so it was easy to get his gist. With his complicated design I did worry my art might seem like a mess. Pretty much as soon as the Secret Fiter roll landed on him though I conceived of his debut by just tackling the Purple People Eater and threatening to kill him before things even started, and I almost considered a Mac Tonight BBB1 style death where PPE goes down without doing much of anything. It could have been funny, but I think giving Alexandra some early work was the better choice. Both unknown fiters going down first maybe means these two won't stand out in the history of these slots, but it also felt rather funny they did drop so hard. Thankfully neither was too complex so I don't feel like I missed out with them dying early.

One thing I'll note is, while I thought the Secret Fiter candidates this year were a very fun bunch, I'm not sure if I'll ever again touch the well of the rejects. I certainly don't expect a full Brawl invasion again, and part of it is because of a small fear of doing a disservice to some of the "back door pilot" secret fiters. I did like seeing Yondu more outside his Brawl run, but if I include a secret fiter as a lark and someone was aiming to use them more seriously, I might write them out of character or something and it just wouldn't work out. I will say it's not fully off the table; I think it might depend on how appropriate it feels like when we had Sheep's Disney aligned lobster show up during the Disney invasion way back, but I don't think I'll be airdropping in a huge batch of extra fiters ever again even though I would have loved to utilize some of the ones sent to me this year for such a thing!

The Brawl this year was actually 30 unique posts, which might be a record! I don't know, I don't remember previous counts. I think usually I try to hit 25, but I also didn't proofread too much this year while posting because I was worried it might not fit in the timeframe with so many posts if I did do so.

For the Pre-Fite Show I decided on the whole "tour" aspect pretty much because the arena was more complicated than usual. I've often been a little reticent to add too much to an arena since that's another thing to keep track of, but I guess in retrospect at worst someone would probably just think "oh yeah, forgot the arena had that." Still, with the theme park layout feeling important too, I decided on the pre-fite show setup. Also, since the Grand Guppy was probably going to do a whole lot of nothing during the Brawl, this felt like the space to lay the seeds for an eventual reveal and make the host feel more meaningful. He's no Knucklotec, he couldn't really join in the fite, but the Grand Guppy still got to play up the theme park jokes a bit more and lay some groundwork!

I wrote the Pre-Fite show before the Brawl this year partly because I knew I wanted to set up so many alliances, but even I didn't realize how many I was making! I don't think ones like the mages would have come together if I didn't need to justify the Pre-Fite Show segments having certain characters. I did know I wanted Alexandra and Jasmine separate though rather than going for the easy ally to match Pitohui's profile on her. Selphy and Shale joining up was also kind of a moment that only came together because I realized the library would draw Shale and I didn't the idol alliance to be too big, so I came up with Shale getting interrupted on the way. Dawn not actively seeking an alliance this year was planned before results came in but so was the twist that she'd get recruited, and there were times like the library fite where I wanted to accentuate her independently to help with this feeling like a new approach for her. Little Buddy's pre-fite was probably the one I was least happy with since I really couldn't find a better spot. I think he was almost involved in the Wonder Chefs pre-fite show and that would make some sense, but of everyone his Pre-Fite footprint felt the least important. Roman trying to cozy up to Chastity comes from a chatzy conversation where Sey said he'd probably try to get with her, but as shown in the Brawl, such a tenuous reason to fite together meant pretty much once the group members split up, they didn't really join back up, Emerald only lucky because she never strayed too far from Chastity and Sam.

 

"Operation Dumbo Drop" is a super early idea I had for Ladislaus, as was him eating You's boat. I think Dumbo Drop came even before the results though, I just really liked the idea of him being dropped like a bomb! I figured no matter what it could fit, similar to things like Eggplant Man finally paying off the joke about Neptune's aversion to it. Drip and AVM Man's dynamic was actually something written in the moment. I had considered just a straight criminal alliance but I hadn't really figured out what I wanted from Sven yet by the time I started writing Pre-Fite, and the showoffy attitude came about basically because I needed to think of why Drip would put up with him and instead got why he WOULDN'T! I did plan for Tricky to have a bigger Pre-Fite footprint initially, rather than just showing up and getting thrown out. Mostly it got trimmed down because it wasn't much beyond showing Tricky actually being hyperviolent and while I wanted to make a second joke about a morally acceptable bear target (based on Nordic fairy tale White Bear King Valemon) I also didn't want to write out such a thing! We know Tricky's bad news and we'd see him flex his bloody muscles later, but I do think I should have at least had him do a bit more. I was tempted to have Iono host a section or otherwise introduce things, but at the same time you can't just always grab onto a streamer or presenter character. Wiz and Boomstick got their moment in Pre-Fite almost purely because I wanted to write their dynamic though. I watched a few of their animated exploits but mostly the voices came easily! Almost makes me wonder if I should grab characters like them or Sam and Max first instead of realizing these dynamics are a blast when I'm handed them.

 

The 13th Vote! I knew I wanted to do a gimmick vote tied to the whole "bad luck" idea but it was hard to figure out what. I didn't want to do anything too familiar or simple, hence why it wasn't a gorillion or something like the vote can be very high or very low, but I also worried about making the potential top payout too high and, naturally, the inverse. The fact we hit 7 vote points was funny in itself, but more importantly, I think that was about the perfect spot for it to land. Not too cray high or disappointingly low, although I wouldn't have objected to higher. 7 almost feels like it's just on the line of not being too tiny too even though people were immediately wishing it was bigger, but them's the breaks! I guess at the same time 7 points doesn't feel like it drops a whammy on the results though, so perhaps some excitement was lost. Either way, I also did 13 votes to line up with the whole 13 year thing.

A lot of things I keep wanting to type here could probably go in character sections though, so we'll move along from the general Brawl chat to the more specific...

CHARACTER CHAT!

This year, I think I'll write them in descending order. I'll still separate them and all, but I think writing about the champion first will prevent the writing cascading in odd ways or certain details more appropriate for a higher placing entrant's section clogging up other profiles! Was that ever a problem? Probably not! But here we go!

Ashley and Magilou: Our champions! And our first repeat champion user! I had hoped if we got a repeat it would be Brine or Chao, but Gooper was also a good one because he has gone almost as long since his Brawl win! I've mentioned elsewhere Ashley and Magilou were a bit of a test of having a team entry who wins not make it all the way together. I didn't want Magilou to go down like a chump or anything, she got a few KOs/assists and used most her magic a fair deal. I didn't want people to doubt she deserves to share the spot despite going down sooner. I do wonder how I might approach this in the future though. I already said to Chao I don't know if I'd change how Team Business faired even if they won, and I kind of don't want a teammate or assistant dying be a death knell for the entrant in total. It might not always be feasible to obfuscate such things, some partners do work better making it far together, but Magilou I think was a perfect fit for someone who maybe doesn't feel like the full champion, but she wasn't a slouch either! Ashley did take a bit of a backseat to Magilou for a while too in order to help this along. One reason Ashley didn't start whipping out too many clever illusions until later was partly because I wanted to keep stuff in my pocket until the late game! I actually have the finale marked as "Ashley illusions go insane" and I think I was imagining a lot more loopy and surreal stuff when writing it down, but when I got there I realized that really wouldn't do too much for her. Little Buddy either falls for it or doesn't and Ashley doesn't feel cruel enough to do really wild illusions that could mess him up. Mostly the "world twisting around" illusion feels like it kept that up, but mostly I wanted to do illusions that weren't too often just a fake Ashley. One reason the finale was such an uphill battle for her was kind of to ensure that she proved her might beyond trickery, although wrecking her so badly with the lost arm and all was only really something I felt I could do because she's not a very direct fiter. I did want to do the illusion steal mentioned in her entry form and pretty much would have if she ever crossed the path of someone like Thatcher (I even avoided him using Illusory Profits because I was anticipating a moment where they might cross paths) but it never came about! I specifically took away Ashley's knife for the finale so it wasn't too close to her taking out Harlequin, both to potentially keep that clue out of the picture and so that she'd have to do more to take out her opponent. Writing the epilogue I did worry I might have wrote her too grumpy, but I figure even if she is generally happy for the win, she'd also need to adjust her mindset from her usual self some to get there. I also limited the amount of witches that spilled in, partly for the image's sake and partly because it might be too much to ask for other user characters to drop by like Draco's witches. I'm sure playing Tales of Berseria really informed how I wrote Magilou, I had a very clear voice in my head for her because of it. Perhaps the only thing I was unsure about was her kill on Teo using the Blood/Sugar power, but as will come up more and more, when two sets of "magic" from different systems mix, this Brawl I just decided "whatever's cooler" wins out rather than trying to logic it up!

 

Little Buddy: Certainly an unexpected runner-up, but a flexible one! At least, once there was enough for him to work with. I did visit the Splatoon wiki and some of his weapons are from it, but mostly, the salmonids in-game don't use a lot of practical weapons. One of them is like, basically a maypole so why would Little Buddy build that in a pinch? I went off and invented my own weapons or kept it simple, and I even had Little Buddy mostly use a "tool" to fix things rather than something specific. I almost imagine it like just some bent metal that works however it's need. Can spin screws, pry, it's just misshapen enough for it. I think the Water Park pipes and all giving him some more stuff made it more believable he could have weapons ready when the narration said he did. Big Buddy was a very quick idea and I actually expected to leave more weapons around for him to make the mech even wilder, but I think dialing it back some was key to making the skew believable but not insurmountable. I also didn't want Little Buddy to be the clear loser in the finale face-off, hence why he's exposed atop the mech and mostly not too bright. Both potential champs were one good hit away from death, Little Buddy just had a mobile high ground! One thing I did consider was him controlling either Mike or Axem Blue from inside after killing them, but it didn't feel right. I also wasn't sure if Little Buddy getting second meant he should get eaten in the end, and more because I didn't want Gooper to have to deal with Ashley potentially eating him I decided to leave it more as a cute nod to his desire to be eaten rather than the full on consumption. I was afraid to put him in the crossfire for quite a while due to his diminutive side and reliance on cumbersome stuff to carry. The moment he'd be separated from his pots and pans would likely mean he couldn't get back to them for a while! I actually didn't initially plan Axem Blue to get all the way to top 5, so originally Little Buddy was going to have no recent KOs going into the end, making it seem all the more likely he was being saved for that last kill.

Hina: The unusual luck of the Big Bar Brawl 13 propels Hina to an unexpectedly high 3rd place!  All of Bree's returning entries did surprisingly well. In Hina's entry, it notes that Hina would probably struggle to fite certain nicer or cuter entries, and I basically turned that into a big part of how she fought. It not only gave her something to do like support Yuna at parts, but it also let me excuse her taking a bit to engage Ashley and Little Buddy near the end. Most important to her run though was her support of Dexter! This emerged from two chatzy things mainly, one being Bree herself coming to Dexter's defense and the comment she made that Hina probably has a huge group of cats she takes care of. From there, it wasn't hard to imagine her trying to help the angry kitty, and I've said before I like to do things I think the users might approve of. I did consider using her wards more, like having her place one near a business entrance as a trap, but putting a flyer indoors usually implies they're at the disadvantage. When I saw Hina and Chastity back to back on the rankings I almost immediately thought of the moment where she'd impact the luck of the way the fires act. Chastity maybe could have guided some fires to harm her, but Chastity was already flagging and even then, just having a few flames lick Hina wasn't going to cut it at that point. The neutered inferno was meant to be a badass moment for Hina for getting so far. I definitely tried to play more with luck than ribbons this time around. However, Hina was part of a weird ongoing issue that arose with fiters who made it far. That being, repeated KO types! Hina did tech backfiring twice and Chastity would do flame whip constriction twice. They were always meant more to be the wrap-up rather than a repeated tactic though, but I guess this is the result of my approach of often just writing "Character kills character" during planning instead of trying to think of a fancy kill picture in advance.

 

Chastity: Chastity definitely embodied the earlier mentioned "do something because it's cool" ethos I mentioned earlier. That Circe chilling magic, I had excuses planned immediately that I told Cornwind after he read Chastity falling under its effects on Brawl night. He was fine with it, said her getting so cold was likely due to competing magics, but I was ready to say things like the air around Chastity was what was actually sub zero or that Chastity was waning or, even, that magic vs. magic leading to odd contradictions! The other thing was Chastity kissing Dorothy, and I had made extra sure that it worked by trying to find any moment of Chastity romance I could in RP. It wasn't an issue, she is bisexual and she's not in a committed relationship, but we have come a long way from when I just would do it because it's funny. Chastity herself I did lean a lot more into her fire and heat than other powers. She had the ability to bring down the temperature and she brought weapons, but with her incredible power, she could do a lot without having to get in there and heat is a lot harder to deal with than cold. Chastity's incredibly high power actually impacted the Brawl start, her going for an immediate attempt at a big roast but it was curbed by the tidal wave and Promethean Fire. I was a bit worried for Chastity with her being a wishlister many years after relevance, but it seems things really worked out for her!

 

May with Dhelmise: Probably the most unexpected of the top ten, especially considering Gooper would get the gold crown with a different character. Keeping May around to place fifth did feel hard at times. She was part of a fairly active alliance and one of the few who couldn't travel quick through water in it. It's why sometimes she kind of faded into the background of those fites Aquatic Alliance was in. One thing I did want to make sure I didn't do was just keep her anchor a Dhelmise the whole Brawl, to the point Dhelmise wasn't even properly "dealt" with. I'm not the bloody killer who needs anything in a Brawl besides the winner to fall anymore, and when Dhelmise overheated I figured that was good way of sending it out without being brutal. I do remember wondering if I should draw a double KO of her and Dhelmise though back during planning. Mr. Dolphin got off easy too, partly because that dolphin doesn't stick around long! If it could stand and fite for a bit it might have gotten a devoted death, but instead he got a little roughed up but not much else. I did want some anchor swinging which is why Dhelmise comes in and out of use, but I feel like I didn't get to using ever Pokemon move I could with it because I tried to balance May's ability set. Again, much in the same way Operation Dumbo Drop was a very early idea, so was Mr. Dolphin ramming into Ladislaus and feeling like it just headbutted a bag of concrete. Just something about Ladislaus got my mind turning! Seems all my notes for May in the Brawl were solely about Mr. Dolphin actually. I guess I figured I got her and Dhelmise down well enough!

 

Donatello: I did make sure to watch some clip compilations of Donatello from Rise of the TMNT to try and get down his mannerisms and fiting style. I wish I had known sooner just how wide his range of Ninpo creations could have been! When Sey used it to make a wet floor sign on a plot event I had my eyes opened to how much further it could have gone, but the entry said it was mostly used to augment weapons, so I didn't want to come up with something out of his purview! I do think I still got in enough non-standard ideas for it, even if I did lean back on the chainsaw a bit because it's hard to argue with an awesome weapon like that. Donatello ended up getting a fair amount of dialogue specifically because I wanted to show I had done research on his voice, plus it worked well as lead-ins for moments like him briefly helping the bug enthusiasts out. Near the end I did want to emphasize the "ninja" part of ninja turtle but I think maybe the part where he relied mostly on fist-fiting and all could have been longer to better show that. I think I was pretty focused in on his mindset so there wasn't really much that I felt I didn't include that I thought up. Maybe more could have been done with those arms in the backpack, I remember thinking, but otherwise there were quite a few techies and Absolute Bass even had a partner explicitly about hacking. I guess I forgot to put Donatello in the little "hacking battle huddle" I did where GBC and Kaydence were just standing around trying to hack each other. Donny was definitely meant to be part of it. Speaking of Donny, I wasn't sure about using a nickname or if it should be Donnie or what. Guess it didn't matter much since I got no feedback about my choices!

 

Yuna: Such a gentle soul like Yuna really did need to ride on her alliance to get this far, more because of her personality than a supposed lack of ability. She was mostly a support fiter up until then, although I think I had a little too much fun having her be way too oozy. She's an amalgam that can reshape herself, but I bet she does like to retain a humanoid form most the time! I guess the battle scenario would draw out more elaborate use of her flexibility, and her being part of the alliance likely spurred it. I did pretty early on come up with the idea of her becoming a major cheese mass though to bump up her power later int he brawl, but I was a little wishywashy on how large I wanted it to get. I didn't want her to be a godbeast, and even when she got big, we got moments like her interacting with Playmate that showed she was still just the same shy innocent person underneath it all. I did definitely mix up her and Yuuma's name sometimes. I had messaged Harp back when she was trying to figure out a name for Yuna with the name suggestion because I thought it made them sound like sisters or twins, but of course, them being close allies up until Yuuma's fall was going to make name-swapping sort of inevitable. I'm pretty sure I caught any errors there though! Yuna's starting capabilities being fairly weak did also lead to her being mostly support until she got things inside her. I did waver on whether the Grimace Shake should impact her at all, but I also considered her maybe weaponizing it later and decided against it. I didn't want anyone to eat any part of her for any implications/grossness. She was rolling around a lot near the end and picking up stuff that wasn't food. She was a useful tool for gathering a bunch of weapons and such together for some of the late game weapon scavenging. A good brawl for scavenging really, some years "scavenging" is mentioned in a lot of brawl entries but then almost barely comes up. I do wish I could have drawn Yuna's death better, but I'm not sure how to represent a cheese person being torn up by a whisk within my limitations. I did wonder how to kill her because of her unusual body, hence why it's a strange weapon. I do think maybe I should have used her spork more, but again, she was so close to Yuuma. I didn't want the two to basically be the same character and I wager that's why her ooziness was so emphasized!

 

Democurus and Reduin: With all his food tricks, it was inevitable that Democurus would be the one I would let get further, but I didn't want to do bad by Reduin either! It's one reason he was active a lot more near the start and then Demo started to really take over. Demo being a bit cowardly made that work too, and a bit like Yuna, he needed a bit to really acclimate to the Brawl at all. Considering how Demo was portrayed on plots and described in his entry, I did want to have moments where he was overwhelmed, but I also made sure he had moments like him dropping the heavy book that showed him putting his all into things. The heavy book was a bit of a spur of the moment action to show Jasmine was up to things before she was to get a true spotlight, but it ended up defining a lot of how Democurus fought! It was good he had a big alliance or else I don't know how I'd have him move that book around! I didn't want to pull over and say he used Leftovers every time he produced an ingredient but I kind of imagine he did, but I still made sure to mention it where relevant like when he made a small Snacksnake group. Snacksnake wasn't something I had planned hugely in advance either, I knew I wanted him to make a new Foodon but I also wanted to properly feature Ramech. Ramech canonically is guided by the thoughts of Reduin and Demo but there's a part where they work together to make them and that was me just covering a base. Already Food Plot had Foodon rules changed and the people who will continue using Foodons will be Draco or Sheep so I don't want to lock them into things or conversely contradict them, but Reduin helping Demo realize the Foodon feels like it made sense. I do think the Supreme Foodon Sauce would have been kept for a possible final two show off as his late game power-up. I remember realizing that he could have maybe made a Supreme Foodon out of like, the Amuse Bouche, and that could have been pretty funny to have goat face cookies become a powerful creature. I did feel a touch bad using so many of his recipes considering it would mean they might not be available in regular RP after. I also remember thinking of him pulling out the Spider Sausages for potential Supreme Foodon but considering his reaction to eating them, I don't think he had time to write down the recipe. A really early idea was Demo would just pop up after certain entrants died or dropped food to get a bite to add to his book, so he was going to have something like the Grimace Shake on call, but we'll find out why he never got the shake in Grimace's section!

 

Iono with Rotom: Funnily enough, while I really didn't want to deemphasize all the traditional Rotom forms she brought with her on the cart, after I had Jasmine attack the cart at one point, I became overly anxious I would use one of the forms that didn't work anymore! I did still end up emphasizing Mower partly because it was a safe pick, and initially when Rotom was entombed I almost had it come back out with the mower form still but felt it better to give Shale a win and not raise questions about how solid Rotom is when possessing something. Like, it loses its ghost typing after all! Rotomcoaster was a super early idea though and I was naturally watching other entrants for things it could possess, but I feel like I could have gone MORE nuts with it! I did make sure Iono's personality demanded some attention too, she wasn't just attached to the Pokemon here. I mentioned elsewhere I almost planned for her stream to become part of Big Buddy at the end of the Brawl but I didn't think that gelled with the idea of Iono getting banned as a strategy. One reason I chose the Lion King remake + Beyonce song combo to be what got her banned was because both Disney and Beyonce have a reputation for doing take downs, but also, I don't like either of those things! Beyonce's a good singer but she seems to have a rotten personality, not even wanting to show up for a photoshoot with the rest of the Lion King voice cast so they had to edit her into publicity photos. Anyway, I wanted to make sure Iono bit someone but was worried I wouldn't have my chance on certain foes, hence why she went for Little Buddy during a small segment. One of those "no one will object to this specific character combo" moments. Funnily enough, if there's something I wish I did more with, it would be her hair clips. Just one of those things where it could be a little surprise attack or tool in a fite.

 

Playmate and Marbles: Marbles potentially not having the will to kill did impact some of how these two were written. It's why Marbles went down first, and while he did get assists, he was never the one angling to get a dangerous blow on people. I think him being the one who really resisted the Grimace Shake and fought against Grimace was probably his big brawl moment and felt right for a guy portrayed as not being bloodthirsty or anything. Playmate meanwhile I did hesitate a bit on how durable and agile I portrayed him. I know the entry said both were exceptionally high, but if he was pulling of gymnast tier stuff or survived a lighthouse rolling over him, it would probably have to be played for laughs or else it might make people start to think that like, Sheep slipped me secret info about him. I don't know any more about Playmate than you guys! Playmate still being impacted by the Grimace Shake did require me to justify he drank them far more than others though since it was stated the hobos might have resistance to bad food. I was, oddly enough, a little torn on how to refer to the pair here. In casual writing I'd whip out limpets or hobos no problem, but with people reading the Brawl who might not see their usual antics, it might seem odd to just call them a limpet. Marbles's ammunition was in a usual JRM spot of "take suggestions from the list but come up with some myself", although I did almost forget the sling was part of a glove! I was a bit proud of having Ashley operate the thing with her teeth though. I mentioned it elsewhere but the hobos weren't part of the Wonder Chefs to avoid alliance bloat, but I knew they'd come join in with some of them near the end. It wasn't as much of a join-up as I expected when I decided on that angle though, it mostly was Playmate and Yuna really, but near the end alliances were sort of spreading out anyway.

 

Natasha Nielsen/Tamaki: Slowly realizing it was almost a theme where a teammate ends up getting a late game push after one member carries more of the action early. Natasha was mostly support at first and that was partly because it's how her entry implies she'd handle things! She had the earpieces which literally determined the end size for Team Business, I might have expanded it further if she had more to share. I did want Natasha to get in there more but hesitated to have her throw herself into a situation that felt unstrategic for her to throw a punch or hip check at. Luckily, the Red Lantern ring not only gave me a way to give her a means of getting much more involved, but it gave me a downfall for her that wouldn't insult her mind! I did feel a little mean having her have that breakdown before the ring finds her, but also thought I needed to do some legwork before it would justifiably seek her out over others. Tamaki, I don't think I ever once considered leaning on her Fire Force gag clothes breakage. If I remember correctly, at most she removed her coat but was of course decently dressed underneath, but maybe I even removed that gag saying she did so. I have a lot of things to remember and some get deleted! Even when posting the Brawl I sometimes throw in a small scene or quick extra line (and funnily enough, they tend to be the ones typoed the most). I did hold off on Tamaki's fire claws a bit since they were noted as temporary and I didn't want my mind to peg her as Fire Claws Lady, she did a lot with fire and heat without just being Chastity 2 though I think! I do remember being a touch worried they'd bottom out when the entries came in. It feels like waiting a few years to Brawl can be dangerous but at the same time, we have results like these that show it's not at all a death sentence!
 

Absolute Bass: Hopefully none of you can tell I haven't played a Mega Man Battle Network game! I read over his entry many times as I wanted to make sure I didn't misuse Noise and I wager I still did something a little off. I do wish with Zero.Exe I had done a sort of "battle inside the computer", but I wasn't sure who would be a good fit for it. Like, we had the counter-hacking and all, but it would have to be another mind in the machine and our other robots weren't exactly crafty or known for literally going into their head. Probably only Crygor had a hope of maybe pulling that angle off. One reason it's important to have Brawl entrant images handy so often is because sometimes your mind turns a guy's claws into much deadlier tools or even forgets he has a basic arm cannon! Luckily, with a guy with so many fun tools, it's easy to just say he picked one option over the other fairly regularly. Looking at his art again though, I wish I did something with that absurd ponytail. It's so fluffy! Imagine him blocking someone's view with it, or it getting yanked! I was a bit hesitant about Noise scouring the area too much or else it would feel it needed frequent mention, and if it hit people I almost imagined it working like acid.
 

Kaydence: Before her late-game push and KOs, I really had an ongoing fear I was underutilizing Kaydence. She's not someone to hold back but also I needed her ready, willing, and able to go all the way to 13th. That's where alliances help, and I almost wonder if in retrospect she showed up a lot more than I realized! I think it was more she wasn't whipping out her cool tricks and all until later in the game. Giving her brief Luffy stretching powers near the end was to kind of pay off her getting GBC's device more than anything, but it also felt like a decent way to expand her kit and tricks for another fite. Kaydence is kind of an endless bag of tricks because of the flexibility of her powers though, and sort of similar to the limpets, I worried about the right terminology to use for her to keep things clear. Like, I'm sure most people know what her tricks are, but describing them makes me feel odd if I say she attacks with "screens" or "pixels" unless that's precisely what she's doing. It's not traditional hard light either! It wasn't a big deal, but it's just one of those hitches you encounter when writing someone doing a lot of different things. I did try to hew close to the suggested actions in her entry just in case. She didn't make a house of pixels or anything out there, but again, could have happened if she went the distance! Probably not a house specifically. I remember when SK was nervous about Kaydence's growth he was worried how she was being portrayed in the Brawl, but to be honest, I'm sure part of why she didn't talk too much was my fear of doing her slang poorly. I tried to find cyberpunk translators but also, I didn't want her to just lean back on the few I knew over and over again! I reread some Kaydence RP though and found enough standard talk that I didn't feel bad including some without slang though.
 

Ladislaus: The big guy! I will leave out any further mentions of Dumbo Drop since I've gone over it before. Sheep in chat said he was surprised to see the Full Factory onion armor, and I did briefly consider having his Full Factory use be different this time around. Then again, Ladislaus has been on the wishlist a while and it's one of those things where if I don't take this chance to use his recognizable armor, he'd never get to use it in the Brawl! Sometimes you go with greatest hits, but also, it's not like I slacked on the excretions. He had salt stilts he made by drinking the ocean! He was picked for killing Yuuma for the obvious reasons, and I almost think his limits made me have more fun with his ability. Yuuma fires things, but Ladislaus fashions them into tools so it requires more creativity. His unwillingness to move I think might have been the impetus for riding the train and was also how I excused him being out of the picture for a while. When he had to travel on his own two feet, of course he wouldn't be charging into conflict! I did worry I didn't do his loquaciousness justice. I gave him a moment or two to wag his tongue but I think I'm almost always going to doubt the quantity of dialogue for characters.

 

Shale: Sometimes I worry when I carve off a limb I might forget and suddenly its back later, but Shale's arms being so important to her battle style made it seem to stick in my head pretty nicely! I did worry about keeping the sledge around after she had used it; with so many magic users and weapons that return to their person it can be hard to figure out which things work which way! I did worry a bit about her going up against Iono and May near the end since Shale is a sweetie and it's sometimes hard to say those kind of characters will fight another. Then again, Iono was going to pick the fight. I think my kill planning had lined up Shale dying to Iono and when I got there in writing I must've forgot the intended set up. I don't regret it, it got stream chat more involved in the later Brawl. Shale absolutely was not allowed to be shoved around though. Sometimes you have a hard character rule in RP and then during an event someone just breaks it, and this did happen to Shale once! But if I can help it, I will not break a rule unless there's an explanation right there saying how it happened! At the same time, maybe she could have done with moving more earth. When your magic impacts what everyone is standing on, it can be hard to ignore that she's almost always going to have an upper hand of sorts! I think that's one reason I was fine with the very abrupt entombing of Dhelmise and Rotom rather than doing more a lead-in and giving the ghosts time to react.
 

Doctor Crygor and Mike: I wasn't prepared for these guys doing so well! I would have given them more interesting abilities had I expected them to get all the way to top 20! I think part of why I felt their powers were a bit lacking was these two guys on plots tend to apply things rather than use cool moves, but in a plot I can talk through the thought process or strategy. In the Brawl, it's an immediate "this does or doesn't work" situation where I'm in control of if it works or not. I guess it might just be they felt a little smaller without that narration surrounding them, and I think that applies to Mike too since his personality is very much part of the writing around him rather than direct actions and statements. Funnily enough, I actually forgot I marked them as a team and there was even a line calling Mike and assistant in the Brawl that I edited after Chao pointed out it, but thankfully, both guys going down back to back prevented any standing issues! I upped the power of Crygor's cybernetics post Brawl specifically because I felt like he shouldn't be too tough with them in the fite, and that laser felt a bit weird to use overzealously since its premise was its very thin and not great for raw damage. Mentally I kept telling myself Mike has clamps for hands for a while before the Brawl but I had corrected my mindset before the writing came up. I think I was a little reticent to break apart Mike before he fell specifically since I was saving parts of him for Little Buddy, but since Crygor could fix him I really should have been more willing. I do worry a bit that Crygor killing Frankenberry made Crygor looked too in control, like it was some sort of showcase for him, but since I needed to keep these guys around until the end it felt important to do something so they weren't just casual mentions here and there before more active participations in fites. I do think the Techies in general maybe should have fought together a bit more to show more of its members off before they got split up.

 

Garvan: One thing you might have noticed in the Brawl is that Garvan was noted more often when she absorbed magic or energy compared to matter, and that's for a good reason: one's more important to note! In a place like a brawl arena there's always rubble and junk or here even snow and sand, so Garvan could vacuum the place easily if she wanted matter for starcoal. On the other hand, her magic canceling was an active counter and more important to note when it filled her up since it would leave her vulnerable when she reached her limit. Garvan's modes for her starcoal pillar also fell in that kind of area where I'd rather just mention which power she's utilizing than what mode she's had to swap to, but it doesn't go completely overlooked. I do like my some gravity shenanigans though so I had to remind myself to whip out starcoal powers. I never did find a moment I liked for Garvan to do her big wave motion cannon, but that's more because a big blast, while flashy, didn't feel so necessary for her attacks. Keeping your trump card in the back pocket also makes it unclear how far you'll go, but here it was sort of more that I felt not using it wasn't too big a deal since it was basically just big gravity blast when she's already playing around with gravity a bunch. I think one reason her fite with Dawn ended up emphasizing her size so much was almost to nail it in that she is big, I remember that personally slipping my mind during things like the idol concert but girl's 12 foot and I made sure that came up frequently like with her being a bit snug in the Rotomcoaster. I know Mike was picked to kill her because of her unusual golem nature. Being made of flesh but not being flesh and blood in the normal way made me unsure what might count as a truly killer attack on her. Sound breaking apart a body felt like a clean way of saying she was messed up beyond repair. I think the most important part is she didn't feel like just writing Utsuho, although Utsuho was also popular in an era where I used wikis a lot for Touhou entries. Still, they make look similar, but they're very distinct, Garvan not as bold in battle and a bit more of a passive ally to match her servant role in the Library. Plus, being a bit passive meant that we didn't get people just flattened to mush all the time! Gravity can definitely be a debilitating power if you let it get TOO wild and strong after all...

 

Team Business: Definitely was not the smartest idea having an alliance be this name but bigger. It had to be done to make the Snatcher trick work, but I really should have picked maybe a broader alliance name or something. I did feel a touch bad killing Johnny so early even though he is a bit of a weak link. I know he's more than a gun, but I think Anelace and Thatcher sticking around longer was better for team health and options. Johnny's entry saying he might make a deal with an unscrupulous sort was pretty much why I zeroed in on him allying with Snatcher so early. Him trying to outrun Alexandra in the alleys was also a reference to his street smarts but you know, sadly a supernatural sort doesn't have to take the ground! Thatcher getting a kill with bankruptcy was one of the kills picked out very early, and while writing the Brawl Chao actually messaged me without prompting telling me how it looked since it just appeared for the first time in RP. I hadn't written that kill yet, but it wasn't like I would have changed much. I think I imagined it more like an effect before I heard about the lightning dragon look, sort of like a red or black aura falls over someone and pulls them down. It did feel a little funny to have Thatcher always standing in the back just throwing out attacks. It did make sense alliance-wise, he shouldn't be in the line of fire! Despite Anelace kinda just being Sword, I think the alliance definitely benefited her. I didn't feel the need to dwell on the details of how she attacked with it since she had back-up from her allies. There's an economy of details and sometimes a character who is just a fist fighter or sword user needs more details to make their attacks feel less basic. It does always help to have personality to give you something else to focus on though, and cute IS justice.

Jasmine and Aono: Man, that Aono effortpost made me want these girls to get the win so bad! I almost voted for them too but I tell myself to commit to my votes or else I'd never really move on. Still, it was a slam dunk of an epilogue for some girls that deserve it! So anyway I really brutalized them huh? Mages can more believably function after severe injuries, but I really played up how these two girls were struggling to keep going despite their injuries, especially after their Heartful Punch fite. Being a stiff wind away from death felt like a fresh perspective though so I didn't abandon it or have them get cleaned up and healed. Jasmine's ability to turn things into enchantments did tap into one concern I had, that being I kept thinking that people might be upset if Jasmine obliterates a character's weapon or whatever for use as an enchantment. I think I should have leaned into that strategy more, it being a clever way to disarm, but I kept second guessing what was available and I think I missed out on some creative applications for it. I still had fun doing it, but I also think maybe Jasmine didn't do as much as she could have because of it. I did keep trying to think of her taking more interesting aspects of objects too that probably prevented me from going nuts. I didn't want her just always going for making something hard or sharp or whatever, I wanted almost every enchantment to have purpose and novelty. She's definitely the kind of fiter I think I would write more unhindered a second go around after everyone tells me it's safe to go a little nuts with her powers. I always sound so trepidatious here but I do let loose and use a lot of the fun ideas I come up with! Thing is this is behind the scenes, you don't say how you sure did that thing! Aono's origami I did mostly stick to animals since that seemed her prefer method and the one mentioned. I did do the paper doll fakeout since people are animals too, but it was also to show her doing something a little more complicated. I think limiting myself to animals also lead to a lot of the fun strategies like guiding Shirtless Bear Fighter around and the exact kill method on Claire. If I could just make paper daggers or whatever it might not have gone to the same creative wells. Naturally, with 300 sheets of paper, Aono didn't feel like she needed to have the number used tracked, but since she was going kind of nuts I made sure to note on her death she had been reduced to nothing to account for it. At one point I did wonder if Jasmine could enchant the entire package of paper, but decided against it both to avoid not representing the power right and to make the paper able to be more varied rather than all of them being sharp or something.

 

Dawn: It wasn't something I thought of when Dawn entered, but I ended up really wanting to write her as almost something closer to Black Widow with the whole quick and skillful movement style compared to other Brawls where she always had a trick or power to focus in on. She did have the Sifter here for teleportation and I definitely got some use out of it, although I kind of regret killing Dawn in her bolthole since it made Big Buddy teleporting near the end feel less of a real threat. It did also show the mech wasn't completely cohesive, but a giant teleporting machine would be cool but Dawn's body wasn't there to provide the necessary tools! That was a point where I fudged a little how much of Dawn was left behind in the arena though. If anything, Dawn maybe fought kind of close to how her mom might battle, which is a bit cute. 20th is a fine spot if this is her last Brawl I think. Easter's obviously going to replace her now as the one always entering, right Cornwind? :V I did get kind of crazy with how much the tokens were thrown around but there was no specified number and if there was one character you can expect to be incredibly prepared it's probably Dawn. She knew when to collect used ones and to bring a bunch, and hey, I bet that bolthole had more. I didn't want to talk too much about what the bolthole had to avoid it feeling like it was too helpful and also so I could just add to it as I liked, but it did also have tools that showed the way her mind thought. I do kind of wish I had kept up the frictionless aspect of her some after Calado got her. It might have been rough, but at the same time, Dawn's too smart to whiff a punch once she knows to account for it and she already had come up with a way around it before Calado was down. I already mentioned elsewhere I don't know if I'd impose the exact ruleset Cornwind decided on for Dawn, but we can also see it as Dawn not wanting to illegitimize her own potential win. I kind of didn't touch alternate dimension hopping or anything like that specifically because I figured she'd play it safe and already had more than enough options with where she could want to go. With Dawn's mind in her chest that did influence my decision to just blow her up fully, gotta be safe that the important parts are gone feels like a common thread for some characters! I do think having limited weapons also made her a thinking fiter, sometimes I put characters in a situation without having an immediate solution in mind and a character like Dawn feels like she has all she needs to McGyver her way out. While this doesn't represent her brawl-hungry or preparedness side, I think this is the Brawl that felt most like the Dawn we see out and about was in the fite!
 

Dexter: I was a little on the fence on whether or not to call Dexter's plasma barf "barf" but no one else seemed to avoid it so it ends up getting described as such in the Brawl. Cornwind didn't want Dexter killed in a painful horrible way or anything so I had conceived of bankruptcy being the killing blow pretty early since I knew it could take the cat out of the picture easily. Sure, there was the implication Dexter simply didn't feel a bunch of injuries before then, but he also didn't feel them so he died without pain! I was a little worried about the Red Lantern ring leaving Dexter but it was too fun an idea not to use, and since Cornwind had already noted the ring avoids many of the rules from the DC universe, it didn't require us to replace Natasha's heart or anything.  I did still read up on Dexter and Red Lanterns, Natasha saying the normal oath for example when Dexter has an altered one to accomodate the fact he's a revived cat. I elected to just not have Dexter speak at all, being angry all the time was one reason but also when's he gonna speak? I do think maybe he could have been occupied a bit more to exlpain his absences but also, he's a cat, so we can always say he's doing things as he pleases. I know this is Natasha related but I went searching for a lady Red Lantern for the ring transferal to give Goop an example of how to dress her and settled on Bleez https://comicbookinvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/bleez_da_by_artgerm-d8k9bpo.jpg with some adjustments made obviously. I didn't want Dexter's constructs to be too crazy since I felt it had to be something a cat would think to use and I perhaps overemphasized the shielding to protect him for Cornwind's sake.

Morgan and Laurent: It had been some time since I played a Fire Emblem game so I didn't immediately remember what spells like Mire looked like, but I think I had a little too much fun with Mire after I looked it up. Technically, the many staves and books the mage pair use feel like they're outside the intention of the current weapon rule, but I think most people were cool with it since while most mages can just use their magic, these poor characters had to shuffle tools with limited uses. I did avoid having Laurent's staves end up in any one else's hands, partly because I wasn't sure if someone would need a specific knowledge set to tap into the healing properties and all. If you didn't, why can't all units use them in Fire Emblem after all! Morgan I perhaps played a bit close to Robin's depiction in Super Smash Bros., especially with Nosferatu, but I think one reason why Morgan faded from view for a bit was the durability. I didn't want to lock her into using more charges on basically just showing she's active and fiting because otherwise I didn't really need to count, I just had a good sense for how many times someone with such limits should use it. I had lined up Ashley to kill Morgan but then also had the mages join up with the idols, but luckily Morgan was noted as reckless so she pushed ahead without her allies and missed out on the join up! The two made it surprisingly deep in and I bet keeping Laurent around would have let him heal up the heavily injured mages, but it also was a case where I purposely spread them far apart to avoid having everyone die so close to an ally's fall.

 

Claire and Kogasa: Much like Crygor and Mike, I had forgotten the exact arrangement these two had when I was planning out the brawl results. I had Claire marked as dying to Xiulan and Clownpiece was meant to go on an angry rampage to avenge her, but Kogasa was an assistant because I wanted to dodge question of how she could revive. She's still got that looming threat of dying if she can't surprise people, but mostly these days she's just a funny girl and I didn't need angst intruding on that here. Kogasa probably did get a bit shafted by being Claire's ally funnily enough. I bet as separate entries Kogasa would have done a lot more but she was easier to kill in the way I did because of her role, but I guess that's sort of the purpose of an assistant. To assist, not take center stage! Still, I do feel she should have done more. Claire I was pretty happy with thanks mostly to the way she handled the late game. I not only got to depict the battle strategist Claire we haven't really seen since she swapped from Salvagers to Kobbers, but after she was on her own and stuck she still put up one heck of a fite with just her basic powers. Part of that sticky situation with the tar was just because the concept of someone stationary fiting and able to hold their ground despite it, but I also tended to wonder if I should involve Gridworks magic at many points when writing her and I thought taking it off the table would help to guide her battlying style more after her allies were gone. Gridworks is a bit of a challenge in that it can be most any shape but there are a lot of rules on what it can't be, but there is a bit of choice paralysis on what the girls should make when they're in a fite. Kogasa did at least still do most of what she's known for, although I do mirror what I had Clownpiece say about her death: she could have made more good jokes...
 

Corporal Guy/Axem Blue: THE BIG QUESTION: Why did Axem Blue make it so far?! Eh, just kind of felt like it. That, and some other factors. This Brawl was long in post count, 30 in total, and normally I'd try to condense it by packing in more kills to single posts. But, I didn't, I let it breath, and the posting speed actually ended up pretty decent! I did intend for Axem Blue to keep going for a while, but I think it was more like up to the twenties or so to get in that Skullmageddon kill and then he'd get axed. But, then I wasn't liking how packed some post was and started shuffling things, and he got moved about and then I think he was in top ten and at some point I decided to embrace the joke and get him all the way up there. Just a robot with an axe going so far inexplicably felt very Big Bar Brawl, but I didn't want it to be some Ravage callback which is one reason I knew when to pull back and let him drop sooner. I do think him being an alliance member helped to avoid his simplicity running its course early. You can better wield a basic fiting style when they're supplemented by others or can embrace a strategy. In my notes I actually marked him as beating Giga Skullmageddon which is impressive, but I think part of the reason Skullmageddon reverted and stayed like that was to make his death to Axem more believable. Also, didn't know about just calling him Axem or Blue, sounds a touch odd. I do think I got a little confused on how injured he was at points, sticking around that long with a robot who can afford more injuries feels like it can lead to that. Corporal Guy thankfully had some moments rather than getting overshadowed. I don't know why I've never seen the idea of throwing an unpulled grenade in fiction before. It's a good scare tactic, but I guess in many situation, if grenades can be thrown, they are done so with purpose. I did have Ashley imitate it too near the end but that idea shifted some as originally Little Buddy didn't even have an idea what the incoming attack could be before I made it a more explicit tactic copy. I think Corporal Guy was a good comedy source, he could just insert himself into a situation with ease but he also was aloof enough he wouldn't always do it. I did want to treat that Magnum like the death dealer it is though, and while I felt a touch bad about the quick kill on Mutsumi and Moulder with it, it isn't like you can argue that a pistol of that strength shouldn't be able to do it.  I did almost lose track of the grenade numbers though, I kind of wish he had more or I had been more careful in using them. I was a tiny bit worried about the New Alliance of Good name maybe upsetting the original members... but like come on, they're comedy characters. Very happy they didn't bottom out considering the wishlist fulfilments are always at risk of an underwhelming showing.

 

Clownpiece: Not a wishlist character, but I was worried about Clownpiece's return maybe not matching how awesome she is! I think it helps her first run was in the mech which didn't feel very Clownpiecey, while this was the Clownpiece we know and love in basically her totality. Her girlfriend, her Ghidorah form, her goofiness, while the entry and even my notes called her Captain Clownpiece in reference to that cool commission art of her, this really feels like the fully realized girl entering the Brawl! I think in some ways Hina had a similar benefit, the time between the Brawls meant it was like someone at the start and someone later in their RP career entering rather than a quick rerun. Clownpiece is fun to write for, because she can kind of say anything. I do regret not getting in a Git though but I don't know if I have the best sense for when she should say it, and she's only allowed to say it so many times! I think in some ways she matches how I'd write Kogasa so it was easy to bring that attitude to her quips. Clownpiece waiting to Ghidorah wasn't just me avoiding it for narrative ease, I wanted to make sure she didn't just fite at the big dragon, and later we got a moment that shows she shouldn't overrely on it too when it only brought her trouble. Same time, didn't want to undersell the powerful form by having it active so much it's a mystery why it isn't working nor did I want it to be weak when it did fite. I did kind of struggle to remember which head took the big injury since there's specifics on which head can do what to keep track of. Having her mixed form be invincible did mean we saw it very little, didn't want to completely stack the deck too much, but it was appropriately limited in when it should reasonably come out considering Super Clownpiece would not work well with her allies. I didn't want to leave out her torch but also, its effect is pretty mean! I didn't want her to outright pick on people, she's a good girl! She did have the wide toolkit problem where I think I could have done more with danmaku, but I think many touhous have moved away from leaning on their danmaku too much unless it's quirky like Sekibanki's heads. I don't think I called Banki just Banki once in the Brawl due to my weird hang-ups on acceptable nicknames. I did need to remind myself a bit she was fiting in the new outfit though, one reason she didn't appear propping up Reisen in the KO picture on Trigger was specifically me kind of being lazy and not wanting to draw the complex normal outfit before I later remembered it wouldn't be that!

 

Henrik and Jahnu: I know I said Crygor and Mike weren't supposed to do so well, but that's doubly true for the fishmen! I didn't want them to bottom out but I totally expected below the middle at best. I think I expected them to do a lot more swimming than they ended up doing, one big thing about the tidal wave plans was I imagined these guys swimming in and attacking people as they swirl in the water but they mostly just used it to approach. I figured realistically the water wouldn't linger long so the idea was shifted and lost its identity. Henrik's fish powers are meant to draw from Scandinavian waters instead of just any fish in the ocean, and for a bit I struggled to confirm the specific fish I was using. Glasetera is somewhere along the Norway coast so sometimes I would just google Norway fish and look at options but it wasn't giving me the best spread. Then I found this: https://www.gone71.com/scandinavian-fish/ You'll see some animals that cropped up in the Brawl and since then as it is a very strong resource for eligible sea life, and things like the Thornback Ray I only know about thanks to trying to find a fish with a specific antagonizing tactic! Jahnu's knots are sourced from many different places but this is the go-to resource of late: https://www.animatedknots.com/boating-knots I know I keep telling myself not to do characters with powers this broad that require constant research, but it's fun to go digging for cool powers too! The marlinspike knot used on Deoxys was actually only lethal because of its specific situation. Marlinspikes aren't too sharp, but having them poke out at close range on the famously frail Deoxys Speed ended up fatal, and one reason why I made sure this is the truth of this move is to avoid wondering why he doesn't always do that knot to things he's tied the rope to! I am trying to get in the habit of having standby options like preferred knots rather than always something new. Henrik was doomed to die first since dude barely wants to move, and I know that made the fishmen a bit hard to rope into Aquatic Alliance fites in earnest for a bit. Jahnu was thankfully very involved to make it easier to pull off. I really didn't expect the Cerulean Voice to come up here and it never felt like it needed to, but I still made sure to mention it JUST in case.

 

Skullmageddon: I was so happy to get Skullmageddon after realizing what I missed out on by playing Double Dragon Neon. The former unaccepted Secret Fiter is such a himbo version of Skeletor that I knew I'd immediately be able to write his dialogue and have a lot of fun with the way he presents himself. I almost worried him challenging Axem Blue might be a touch out of character, but he's already a friendly goof sometimes and it seemed to go over well. I actually went and looked at the Secret Fiter Scuffle Gooper wrote to confirm how Skullmageddon can die because I was wavering on how much of this guy is expendable bone. His images have a black body that looks organic but I also didn't want to say he had flesh or blood in case that would prove to be against Draco's intentions. But, in the scuffle, Skullmageddon dies to a head wound so I felt fine going for the head chop that Axem Blue would definitely want to do. Maybe Axe Cop made me think axes are too much for decapatation since I really wanted that to be the kill. While I say elsewhere that HP was sort of the mind of the New Alliance of Good, I think Skullmageddon was the powerhouse. I didn't want him to just be Giga Skullmageddon the whole Brawl though but apparently I left out the details on why he reverted and had to edit them in after the post went life, that being he didn't want that hacking exploit mentioned in his entry coming up! I remember thinking I wouldn't use the free mentioned weakness Skullmageddon mentions in his weakness section because a Brawl doesn't have video game brawler rules, but it fit so perfectly with the way Axem Blue could get the KO I pulled the trigger anyway. I did avoid having Skullmageddon call out his every attack since it would get cluttered, I even thought I had May say Totsugeki too much before I started to go gags about its subversion. I still made sure it appeared some for the big guy. Naturally I had rewatched his boss battles from the game, it had been a while and I mostly remembered his attitude over how some attacks look. While some KOs I let the fite flow decide, I knew I wanted the fire barf sword pin to be a KO from him. Also, I needed to remind myself a few times that sword if freaking big! Almost left out the orange flashing too, but it felt a good way to show that the fite with Axem Blue was more even than one might expect considering one is a robot with an axe.
 

Yuuma: Yuuma's big moment this Brawl was helping take out Dark Mind, but also, since my decision to have Hummer really bring it home in killing it, she did kind of get her "big villain kill" taken from her. Since she does want to do big villain kills like she's read about, that was meant to play into her desire to live her stories, but mostly she became an overenthusiastic attacker who assisted her allies because of the shift in what I wanted to do with Dark Mind. I do think she was a good instigator, not having that same logic that others did on how to approach or who to approach. I am still kind of figuring out how durable I want her to be; I don't think it makes much sense for her skin to be impenetrable just because she's durable on the inside but I also don't want her to be so weak it breaks her core idea. She's got indestructible parts and her body has to be tough to contain those teeth and that stomach, and I even made sure Ladislaus attacked a specific part of her I could justify as not being as durable. On one hand though, the fact she didn't get big villain kills or the like works pretty well for her as a fledgling character. I think continuing to work on her expectations vs. reality angle in RP is where she's going to shine but she's not going to have some big epiphany moment either where it's like "ah, I see the truth now!" that would set her on the right path.  I did want her biting into interesting things so she could have cool danmaku, but at the same time, I didn't want to lean on rubble and road for every person with an ability tied to what's available. That also meant I was a bit limited unless I wanted her biting into weapons and the like. I remember in character conception I did imagine her biting off a chunk of someone to take their powers, but uh... her firing flesh balls or something is probably what would happen with what she is now. I do wonder if she might have done better waiting but also she was the one the Wonder Chefs were working to save so the alliance might feel a little like it has a large hole without her. Her indestructible spork probably ended up playing a bigger role than her since it was a useful powerful tool for others to utilize!

 

Shirtless Bear Fighter: It's not often in ivel's cast you get the slow burn, and while I would have been happy to get Shirtless any year, I think he really shined here. I imagine I would have gotten creative and goofy with it any year, but this year felt conducive without just featuring actual bears to fight! I did want to avoid stepping on Chao's toes with any familiar premises, no Paul Heybears here out of respect. Original jokes only! I did finally for the first time look up SBF's origin comic some and was surprised to learn he has a bear family, but I kept things simple and had him a bear killing machine. I didn't want to lean on the hairy men as opponents only though but also didn't want to ignore that avenue either! I used to never call him just Shirtless but he came up so much and did so many things I decided it better not to fite it, and I even tried on SBF just now and it doesn't feel right. The name needs to pack a punch too! I knew he was destined to fite AVM Man, but I also decided to tease it a little with Sven not going for it too easily so that it wasn't just pure bait. It did play into a running gag I enjoyed just thinking of, Shirtless entering fites the moment something bear related happened. I think keeping myself thinking of that gag also lead to him doing more since I was seizing on chances to throw him in, and he worked as an independent fiter well because he often had a reason to join in a dogpile or join a fite as a new factor. I do wish I had done a little bit more with his brief affinity for Little Buddy (both probably hate Grizz Co., right?) and I was a touch worried about making him just a mindless bear killing machine. He can talk and stuff! Then again, people want to see the bear punching, so why fite it? I did want to make sure he didn't just become Saxton Hale though, he was not invincible or anything. Kind of wish I had thought up a good gag for putting a shirt on him. Maybe Aono's origami could have been involved, but also, running full tilt the whole time I think did justice to use finally getting him in the Big Bar Brawl! Thanks a bunch ivel!
 

Circe: I do regret only having Circe do the ghost boat summon as a trick rather than an authentic use of the power, I know reading it early on I imagined her sailing aboard it for a bit. A funny thing about Circe's Brawl entry is it doesn't mention her wielding a baseball bat until the last line of her last weakness, and it could have very easily slipped under the rug! I was pretty eager to give Circe more blue magic but also didn't keep track of it the best, but I definitely think she learned even more than she even explictly used but more importantly, I wanted to balance her natural spells with the blue mage tricks. She has an interesting range of effects and I definitely wanted to play in that space, but funnily enough I didn't expect to commit to the Silt Slash KO on Attami until we got there. I think that was a case of just knowing she had a powerful attack that could conceivably carve up an android, but maybe I should have made it flashier. I think even though she had a trimmed spell list she did have some old Brinelady Spell List energy because the variety was broad but filled with interesting effects, and I think a tidy list also makes me linger more on how each one is and can be used since they don't have as much room to bounce around all their cool tricks. I remember trying to make sure I didn't just summon the giant water animals without too much purpose, it would be underwhelming to have them just around so I wanted them to land with an impact. Circe having less water strength than someone like Danai or Aqua also lead to her help in the major waves being deemphasized and the same goes for how much she wanted to fite in the water. It didn't feel as core to her with this goody bag of options that favor land battle. Circe having some temperature resistance means the boil wasn't quite dangerous to her, but Chastity was doing more than boiling with the blade through her and all, the narration even saying the boiling after was a touch, not the main tactic. Boiling water for bubble cover was though!

Cornifer:  Based on CKR's entry and the phone conversation, Cornifer definitely felt more like he was meant to be in line with Peter in terms of effectiveness. Not quite as ineffective as the regular joe, but CKR was definitely having fun with just a strange "everyman" even though he's a big bug. She referred to him as a beetle, but as I read up on him I found differing opinions on what kind of bug he was, and since I knew he was already destined to interact with Mutsumi, I decided to use that as her angle for interacting with him too. CKR made sure to mention his marriage to me and so I included a small reference to that, but the big question would be what he'd do when he had to stand and fite. I didn't want to compromise the concept by having him unveil some hidden crazy power or agility, he's a big bug cartographer through and through. That's why his earned kill was by activating the grenade and not doing something like jabbing a quill through someone's eye. I did not initially specify how much of the arena was mapped but saw the bet made and considered it fairly. He really didn't have time to map too much of it so I gave the honest truth before he had his freak out. I do know there was some consideration that maybe he had a deeper purpose for his mapping too but I had come up with the idea he was just an overenthusiast and I stuck to my guns there. I do worry this year her roster was maybe too quirky and maybe a few more true combatants could have earned her bigger results on the scoreboard. Even when it came time for Cornifer to attack though I was left trying to conceive of neat ways to do stuff with just quill and paper and it didn't feel like a deep well, moreso because I didn't want to humiliate who he was facing. He was up against normal girls like Selphy for a reason near the end, he can't exactly freak out effectively in Chastity's direction for example.
 

Teo: There was certainly a temptation to have Teo's mosquito do a bunch of cool attacks and be an awesome mechanical bug, but that wasn't really how we saw Teo use it and its entry sort of says it doesn't do battle much. I do feel a bit bad I didn't do the split futures gimmick every time I could do it, it would have been a lot of work though and potentially disruptive at times, and by not doing it I also allowed for moments like when Teo and Magilou both utilize it and you get one then the other. Plus, the mystery of what the futures were also can be fun! I did like my format for it in the Pre-Fite where they were different colors. When Bree asked me about Teo's Pre-Fite show behavior I called them "introverted" but I think "insular" is the right word for what I meant. A lot of Del casts these days are sort of cliques who are a bit hostile towards outside groups, and while Teo is a homebody, they have been a bit more quick to speak to strangers. I think part of it was though their alliance was very strange that was meant to explain their discomfort. Someone who takes themselves seriously has a mental hurdle to get over when the Grimace and Spider-Ham are trying to get chummy with you. Teo's sugar dependence to use their power was a big factor in having Grimace be in the alliance and the "bug enthusiasts" was kind of spun out from Teo in some ways. Teo being a little reticent to work with the group was also to give them a little arc as they become the team player despite being joined up with goofballs. Rick's cooking ended up being pretty important, I felt kind of bad swatting it out of Teo's hands but it had a destiny to fulfil. I don't know if it was specifically said Teo ate the snacks but also Teo recovered from Blood Sugar use and it wasn't all Grimace Shakes. I did make sure to select a good amount of sugary treats, Bree encouraged them to tie to Rick's Latin American heritage and I knew immediately I was going to use churros, but I wanted something round and luckily food around the world is never lacking in treats of that shape. I did try to make sure Blood and Sugar futures weren't just always "everything goes wrong vs. everything goes right", and I think not depicting them all helps with that. Still, I think a few more times we got more details could have helped it out, but also, I didn't want it being nominally used so much people start to ask why Teo isn't a skeleton.

Dark Mind: After we sorted out exactly what Dark Mind's shtick was here, I did still have a few moments where things were a little unusual. Mainly, I wanted to have Skurvy fall close to Dark Mind's death so we didn't have questions raised on if Skurvy was the entrant or Kaptain D. Mind, and I almost didn't even call him Skurvy at all during normal writing to initially distance the entrant from the host body. I do think my drawing of Skurvy with the belly mouth like Dedede looks weird but honestly, so does Dedede with the belly mouth, but drawing it really helps it set in. I did initially consider having Bluster Kroc participate in some form, most likely appearing during the Pre-Fite when I considered the Grand Guppy having his tour interrupted more often. I felt a bit bad wasting the character but it seems there's still hope for the guy so it's not so bad. I did keep reminding myself it takes more than shattering to take out Dark Mind's mirror and I even had Yuuma picked for him partly because I could imagine her well and truly breaking the mirror without it reforming thanks to her special gut. I do think maybe I rushed through the "wizard" phase but also watching the video of the boss battle again there doesn't feel like there's so much between the phases that couldn't be carried over. I did wonder if Hummer should get a rename (beyond the Bummer joke) or a Dark Mind crown but I felt I needed to keep things simple. As mentioned elsewhere Hummer was initially planned just to remain a thrall the whole time and even go down with Dark Mind. Possessing a Pokemon also felt safer than messing with the mind of a talking character or some such. I did feel like I had to leave Dark Mind off the table a while though, like him being active in a fite would necessite more than simple blows. I do regret a bit not writing out a full Skurvy shanty in the Pre-Fite but worried I wouldn't have the time and more importantly, I didn't want to lessen the impact of them. The big song to Hummer was the most important.
 

Heartful Punch: Heartful Punch was sort of the same girl who entered last year but we got to know her a bit better, but really, I don't think I changed much about how I approached her really. It was more the situations she was in that changed this time around, HP sticking to her familiar powers right down to things like the bubble and darts but she was in a stranger alliance than last time that almost left her a voice of reason amongst goofballs (and the overly serious types of Scars and Corporal Guy). At the same time she turned her fists against people who couldn't really take them like Jasmine and Aono but also she was more of a leader type during the AVM Man takedown, so while I didn't expect the 34th place, I think it did a lot to give her room to feel different from the previous Brawl. I haven't caught up on Sleepless Domain lately so I don't know if there's more I should know about her that has since been revealed and could have given me something new to touch on, but her entry was pretty much the same and yet didn't manifest as some low-placing retread. While I admit I was probably overzealous with alliance formation this year, I think a character like HP really thrived in a large group. Naturally, I fully avoided calling her Kokoro this year. It could have maybe been a joke somewhere but it could have also been confusing. I did worry a bit about her death, not only because I felt it had to be very clear she got cut up so bad by punching through the Handaconda it was fatal, but because that also meant she was probably cut up very bad! It was painful, and while Heartful Punch is tough, it still feels a little mean to rough up a cutie pie.

 

Selphy with Deoxys: Very happy we got Selphy in the Brawl, I seem to enjoy rich ladies who still get involved and aren't afraid to put in the hard work! I had thought she would be entering with maybe her Persian or Rinrin, but I can see why Pitohui chose Deoxys. Having a powerful Legendary Pokemon on your side really increases your chances, and I liked that it was also a sort of naive version of a Deoxys too. I was constantly aware this is a Legendary Pokemon, one of the most powerful of already powerful creatures, but having that angle that this Deoxys is still acclimating to the world and curious like a child I think not only helped it be more believable in its power not being out of control, but it gave it some personality when such a strong creature is sometimes just strong as its personality.  Bush Cubes were naturally on the Democurus short list for things to eat but never got there, and I wish I had done more with them. Like, they were the kind of item I kept reminding myself of to try and get something out of them. I did have Selphy outlast Deoxys because I did kind of want her to do stuff on her own, but I feel like that she didn't end up doing a whole lot despite that decision. I did make a note I wanted to use that weird Extra Deoxys Clones power but it didn't have a marquee moment when it did appear. Selphy being at the library in Pre-Fite to meet Shale I believe was partly because I thought the Iono connection important enough to maybe connect them. Pitohui initially had it where Deoxys didn't have access to TM moves and eventually changed his mind, but funnily enough, I think I only used learnset moves! Maybe once or twice I didn't, but I do remember trying to prioritize the learnset moves first and foremost and since it has four forms, that meant I could pull on different skills without it feeling too limiting. I've always thought the Normal and Attack forms are kind of redundant in the games though, I feel like I may have almost completely avoided Normal in writing save for the implicit idea that was where it started at. Probably just because of the appearance because the stats and all are different, but vary it up some more Game Freak! Naturally, to make Deoxys dying to someone as normal as Jahnu, I had him fall in Speed Form where its a major glass cannon. I did worry a bit about having my own guy kill a legendary because it wasn't like it was meant to make Jahnu look good or anything.

 

Attami: 36th ain't quite 1st place, but I am willing to accept that not everyone else considers her a precious android who must be loved and protected. Maybe I'm channeling Miyoi too much there. Sort of like other characters with "modes" I didn't have Attami swap them much narratively until a few very relevant moments, it feels like the kind of thing that could feel like too much detail when writing snappy battles. Charge mode definitely was a get out of jail free card and being able to have her use certain abilities more often, but I did keep in mind the odd nature of Neck Beam with its aerial beacon for five minutes and all. Her knees rockets do feel like an odd ability, like the positioning of how it fires more than anything made me think for a bit how awkward it must be to fire, but now as I write this I finally realize she's probably meant to flamingo it a bit and fire it with horizontally level rather than an odd sort of forward bend to point it. When I first thought of Attami getting the kill with the massive house-sized rocket, I didn't really plan on their being much fallout. She activates the mode that protects her friends after all, but quickly I realized its potential in scrambling some fiters and wrecking the place. Too much fiting felt like it was happening on the beach anyway, Shadow Sky also had a good deal of its use just being to scramble the entrants a bit so I could rearrange. I feel like I underused her booster, which is funny because at times I felt like I was a touch limited with her attacks. I think its more a case of there being explicit techniques that kept sending my mind there instead of having her do more generic fiting like one might do with a weapon. I always wanted to whip out a skill so it moved my mind to figuring out which rather often. I bet if Gooper hadn't mentioned the Dorothy alliance it might have completely slipped my mind with Attami already so obviously slated for the food-based alliance. Funnily enough, when I separated Attami from Demo I had an oh crap moment as I remembred she was lugging his heavy book around, but luckily Ramech bailed me out so I didn't need to rejigger the groupings at the time.

 

Sam: I feel like I've said this a lot but I was worried for Sam's return run, but again, I've also said about entrants like Clownpiece that I think the time really helped it feel fresh. Sam's run back in Vegas as perhaps not the brightest Brawl performance, but I think he was better handled here. I did wonder if Jasmine making the Grandius as durable as paper and crumpling it up would be kosher, the sword has an AI and it's some fancy unique weapon, but that's one reason it was crumpled up rather than torn or anything. Just uncrumple it and get you a disenchant Sam, you're fine. Grandius's priorities where it does thing like return to its user I think was the most fun part conceptually of his kit and it got an emphasis compared to his Asterokinesis. He used his fire a lot, but I think that was one big change from the Brawl he was in before where that was definitely a bigger focus. Leaving out the Elemental form was actually a good call because when I think of his last Brawl run, I think of him being in that form mostly! So that's probably one reason it feels so different. I did worry pairing him up with Chastity as an ally would cannibalize some of his potential, both utilizing flame and all, but I think beyond points where he would have gotten sidelined anyway it didn't really impact how he fought. Funnily enough, while Sam's wit was listed as an advantage, I think that morphed into the way he tried to psyche out Sugar rather than teasing or joking with her. It was still meant to show he had a gift of gab of sorts, and I think it does tie a bit more to a mature fiting style. Him being more mature might have also tempered how I wrote him to again divert him from his more careless older Brawl performance. The comparison to Nova in Marvel vs. Capcom was actually a big help in making a clean cut in how I perceived his flame powers compared to other fiters. I could have likely had him do flamethrowers and all no problem, but I started thinking more about fireballs and all because of that!
 

Dorothy: I did worry for a bit being in a giant mech would reduce the potential for Dorothy antics. I should have known better! I think someone with as pronounced a personality as Dorothy too also leads to the mech fiting in more unusual ways. I don't think the floor scoot strategy on Chastity would really come up with other fiters in this vein. I did want to use her little finger guns and sonic ear attacks but I didn't want her to have to get out the mech for some reason and just pop back in, so breaking open the front opened up some possibilities. I did wonder how hard to go with Dorothy's flirtatious nature, but I decided to go broke and just go ham on it.  Her Brawl quote does imply she wants to be taken a bit seriously as a threat, but I still felt she'd just be having fun even if it didn't end up reciprocated! Naturally, I made sure she was about as respectful as someone like Meiling though so it didn't get skeevy. The 90mm M54 cannons are pretty powerful in real life, and while the Brawl has some heavy hitters, the people I had Dorothy go up against couldn't often take a direct hit from those babies! I didn't want her to be too inaccurate but I do think I was walking on eggshells a bit for finding the middle ground on when it should hit and how people should handle it. While I wanted to use the Stingers more, I think that it was good to limit it so I didn't go nuts with the missiles too much, and I bet I wouldn't have lined one up for a kill if they were more easily available! It had to be special, to the point I sent CKR an image of a stinger missile for the shot in case she wanted to include it, and she did! I will admit, maybe I should have mentioned the airfoils more, but I got lazy! I didn't want to look them up! This thing, of all things! I mean, I did once during note taking, but when writing the Brawl I was like "man, I don't want to google this specifically" for whatever reason. They weren't even ignored, I just had this inexplicable aversion to them. I definitely won't forget the P-131's name after this, it feels like the kind of terminology I'd underplay but it was better than just saying The Mech a bunch, and it's not like people would misunderstand what it was referring to in the situations Dorothy found herself in. You'll notice Dorothy went up against Darkness and Chastity for her kill and be-killed, but Darkness isn't as horny as she is in Konosuba so she didn't quite get reciprocation there. Still, it was obvious why they were picked! Keeping my flirty options open! I might have kept her just as helping Attami and trying to woo mid-brawl if it wasn't noted in her entry she'd be more actively looking for cute allies, and so the extened alliance was born.

 

Game Boy Color: You'd think with her being my character I'd have like, a bunch of Game Boy Color games lined up for her to use, but I keep defaulting back to Wario! I do wish in the finale when Big Buddy uses her device the Goomba power infliction was more meaningful, I had always wanted to do more negative power afflictions with the device but never came up with them during plots until I actively thought of it as a weapon here. I do enjoy trying to think of its hacking applications more than its video game power-ups since it was the original idea for her tool and it does lead to her fiting a bit different, but we had many hacking types this Brawl and it wasn't so special! As for the Game Boy Color games of choice, I was writing her fiting Geats and I had a spark of inspiration in my head since I was certain there must have been a Japanese only game with Riders, and sure enough, there was! I tried to pick an old-fashioned weird Rider I didn't think anyone would want to use to avoid potential weirdness. The whole video game gimmick of the Hard Girls in general has me frequently break my own desire to keep the idea that these characters have media roots out of RP, but while I'm sure it would be contradicted, I could always see Kamen Rider Stronger as a fictional rider or something within RPverse. One big reason I picked him for the power-up too was it was very physical and GBC likes to get in there and hit people! It wasn't directly addressed, but one reason why GBC used the Dragon Quest monster to imitate Kaydence's powers was because she how successful fiting fire with fire was on a Kamen Rider, so she hoped to repeat that with Kaydence. Of course, she learned ability doesn't equal mastery. I didn't want to bust the device up since it's GBC's only version of it and it goes all the way back to her work on it as a kid, although it's probably been Ship of Theseus'd along the way. While I say it for like every Hard Girl, I definitely think GBC would have benefitted a lot from her real name being out there, same like I felt that for 3DS. The acronyms aren't the best! Still, I might have ended up avoiding it anyway to make sure people I knew who was being discussed, so oh well.

 

Drip: I had all but given up on him, and he's finally here! ...I don't think I did him justice, enter him again Sheep! Really though, I think there was a seed of worry here on how brutal I could take him. Like, when he went in Iono and only distended her stomach as he was about to burst her, that still made me think maybe that's kind of rough! Maybe it's because the water has to go inside to do it, but I wasn't shy about him trying to do his on-land drowning trick. I actually think it was more what he'd be doing when not going for direct kills like that that makes me feel like maybe I was missing something. I know he's marked as being able to flood a casino floor, but even when putting him indoors I wondered how far should I push his expansion and moreover, how can I justify it with fiters who could mess him up for trying or avoid the flood. Maybe he spent a little too much time as a moving puddle, and I did worry I wasn't getting the timing right on things like how long he could keep a cohesive stream going when being aggressive with water. We have water controllers elsewhere in the Brawl, but Sheep's entry referring to his transformations as a bit different from full shapeshifting due to mutancy stuff discouraged me from having him follow water rules. I did intend in initial planning for him to stick with AVM Man before I conceived of their dynamic that made keeping them apart make more sense, but maybe there should have been more follow through there.  I think maybe Drip would have made a bigger splash with a clear group to attach to or a boss type to order him around. Still, I did try to respect the fact he's tricky and not good on upfront confrontation by having him prefer to flee than stand his ground, and maybe that's why it felt like he was so often a moving puddle. Funnily enough, here and now I'm getting ideas I wish I had thought of like him being a second thrall for Dark Mind. At least he made the rollercoaster area more meaningful since it was overall underutilized.

 

Vrock: While I love chipper giant knight Vrock, I also was very excited to get to use the haunting "cold" berserk mode and that's one reason she was a good fit for taking down a serious powerful fiter like Scars. It showed its efficiency and the whole horror movie character vibe was a fun little approach to fiting we don't see often in a Brawl. I think maybe more of her chipper attitude could have been shown in the Brawl, but she was more of a team player than most in her alliance. Having Oona there to guide her definitely lead to her strength being emphasized and her respect for Oona's orders meant she was basically always going to go along with whatever she said. With so many characters who can make fog it felt right for Vrock to use it, especially as she ended up on her own and needed an edge. Funnily enough, I think despite having a small list of spells, she feels like many could be odd or step on toes if handled poorly. I made sure to throw in a joke that the undead she animates were already there to avoid any Deb situations, I made sure Contagion was applied to a character close to death instead of it being a tool for suffering, things like that. I almost made her go big earlier but also I don't know, I don't want her to be too big too early when it can be a tool to change how she fites in a later showdown. I probably should have done more with that desication aura, but once again, if you're wondering why I killed someone like her the way I did, it's because the entry makes them sound damn hard to put down! Vrock was a well-armored beast whose armor I was even afraid to break, so Attami's enormous rocket felt like it was not going to have to justify itself to obliterate her.
 

Mutsumi with Moulder: MUTSUMI DIDN'T ENTER WITH HER STICK! I know it's not like, her trademark or something, but I really felt like she was going to bring a stick here. I think that's one reason my mind went to giving her Donatello's staff for taking down Demon Tricky. Naturally, her kill on Demon Tricky was meant to show her resolve despite being a normal person. I did want to make sure she used at least one bug from the tidal pools since her entry brings that up specifically as a potential source for bugs in a pinch, but the spider sausages were such a perfect fit for her. The idea of the weapon is it's a chaotic mess of random spiders all on the same sausage in the hopes a black widow or some such might get in there and hurt the opponent. Mutsumi could make sense of the random assortment though and more importantly understand how to use the spiders strategically. I did avoid her going for the standard types because of how much a bug nerd she is, to the point she basically got the alliance named for the fact her bug interest united them. If you're wondering about the emphasis on dock spiders though, it's because here in Fondy our baseball team is the dock spiders so I've been hyper aware of them since I learned about their existence! I didn't want to squander the items in her survival kit even though finding some uses for them at times was hard, but I think Corporal Guy was a good fit for someone they could believably work on. I do remember thinking Demo might get some of her honey only for it to feel too perfect as a Borea counter to get us there. I tried to write the Moulder as a bit of an animal rather than a stalwart companion to Mutsumi, but also I did worry it and Spider-Ham both using silk would lead to overlap so for a bit there was some shift in focus on what the spider can do. I maybe could have made the Moulder work without Mutsumi, but also, it would have likely gone independent so I made it a double KO. It's not like it felt it needed to do more, I got a lot more use out of the spores than I expected. I remember thinking the Moulder would also fall victim to the Grimace Shake, but Grimace only had so many arms, so the bug got to help in the battle without Mutsumi and show its loyalty! I think a character like Mutsumi could go awry in some circumstances, not live up to her potential, but I was pretty content with how she did even though I can imagine something wilder. I can also imagine something plainer, is probably why I'm fine with this performance :V

Kokoro and Sekibanki: I think I was a bit worried about these two being lost in the shuffle of their big alliance which lead to a bit of overcorrection, but them being involved more often is rarely an issue! I think it's because of their humble ability set comparatively, not that I didn't find ways to extend Banki having a bunch of heads into new attacks. I did have the one song she got her cat suit look from trapped in my head pretty much any time she appeared in the Brawl though, and similar to wanting to share Ashley art with chat but resisting due to potential implications that she would do well, I didn't link the banki song. I did wonder if I'd even find a moment I liked for lowering Kokoro's Meta Knight mask, but considering she was slated to face Oona maybe I shouldn't have been. I did specifically avoid asking CKR do art of her for fear she'd give her too much emotion! Kokoro having just the polearm (sorry Goops, I didn't find a moment for her to dance) did make her feel a touch limited which I think is one reason why I made sure to push them anyway and keep them active. Don't want Koko fading into the background! I do think I pretty much didn't have them fly at all to respect that part of the entry unless I forget a moment, but I did want to at least reference Kokoro's cooking to make her feel a fit for the alliance, hence the Pre-Fite being based around her place! Those corn dogs were an easy way to seed some options for Demo too. I think I intended Drip to do something much worse to kill Sekibanki than the grenade trick, but it was always marked as opportunistic so it was something she wouldn't see coming. I did enjoy drawing her death, I think the faces were funnily enough some of the best in the Brawl art from my side. Maybe I need big expressive faces more often?

 

Aqua and Darkness:I did wonder a bit of having Aqua go down first would lead to some worries about Darkness in RP later, but I think Darkness never abandoned her or anything and she worked to avenge her too, even if that ended up diverted. Darkness does have a Stand where the question of why it isn't always active comes up, but it is more fun as a power-up and there would definitely be times where maybe Darkness got proactive enough in her defense that it had to dispel. I'd say having read JoJo some now should have impacted how I wrote it, but I don't know if it did because it's the kind of Stand that impacts the user rather than having questions of independent function and all. Aqua using an ice golem very much came about from it being mentioned as something she did before but it was a sort of spur of the moment add too, not a long term plan. Notably, it was independent compared to Aqua riding in it like last time, and that at least meant it demanded her attention to move. It gave Aqua a bit more oomph than being another person who could throw around water, and due to her attitude I at least didn't feel like she should always be doing high power things with her strong powers. She's not incompetent, but she's got some of that dumb girl distraction energy where her mind can be subverted from doing the most powerful option. Darkness outlasting Aqua was partly to make sure Darkness wasn't just an Aqua shield, I wanted her to have time to show off her stuff too, especially considering her alliance's early strategies kind of put her in a bind since she had no water protections. I tended to list the pair as Darkness and Aqua mainly for their entry image having them positioned that way

 

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man: Maybe in some Brawls I would have been insistent in using the full name, especially since AVM Man feels a little imprecise in capturing him, but I did find Sven worked as a decent shorthand at times even though I also worried people might forget that's his name. More importantly, his name is obvious meant to be broad, like he can turn his body into plants, not just vegetables, but dang it, it's more funny if we commit! It HAS to be a vegetable in RP for it to work, and I even had to go back and change a part where I used a watermelon for an attack as I had started slipping into vegetation instead of vegetable. Mineral, though, I will admit I was more loose on, mostly because I bet being too precise there would be less fun. Like, Mercury probably isn't a mineral, and I'd have to do some wiggle work with I guess Cinnabar, but the fact the line isn't as immediately apparent as animal or vegetable shows that expanding it more was the right choice. I did worry about the moment where he used asbestos, as if people RPing the characters who breathed it in would go on to have long-term health concerns, but dang it, if I didn't think this way sometimes we'd have more moments where people DO go for that angle! I did not have any quirkiness concocted for AVM Man until right as I wrote his Pre-Fite Show section, and it's a fairly simple but fun approach since it means I can reach out there instead of going for basic choices on the things he became. I almost didn't even have him be a criminal I do remember, I threw in the comment he robbed banks just to show off his powers to make me commit to that. One thing too I wondered about is why he does the thing with like, a half T-Rex face. It was done to show his powers in a comic medium of course, but in the Brawl he'd exist in real time, so I had it more he did shifts part by part. He could probably go full beaver, but he'd need to gradually become it region by region. I did always kind of suspect he might be a CKR choice considering he's a top runner for well known ridiculous DC villains and I think he has less wiggle room than someone like Polka-Dot Man or Lord Death Man for creative iteration. Lord Death Man has actually made a resurgence in comics now as something more serious! I did wonder how large AVM Man is meant to be though, but I figure that varies enough that it didn't need to stay too consistent.

 

Kamen Rider Geats: When Geats's entry mentioned their body horrifically contoring with Revolve On, I knew I had to go see how it looked, but in the show they pull off the armor swap rather cleanly despite it not really making much sense. However, I also saw the strange way they enter a wheel that facilitates it and how Geats uses it to dodge on at least one occasion, so that's how Revolve On was used in the fite. Surprisingly, reading up finishers on the Kamen Rider wiki with Geats's arrangement brought up just the laser shot they end up using to earn a kill and nothing too flashy or crazy, but that's because this Rider module gimmick means finishers come from different modules and thus I didn't want to use one that isn't eligible. I do wonder if Geats using a Jyamato module is technically kosher, but it was emphasized they were using similar situations and I have to imagine the brothers expected their characters to interact in some way! I did want to make sure Geats got some loot too and wasn't sure where else they could get something of value to augment their powers. I was a bit wary about leaning too hard into the fact Geats treated things like a video game, moreso since I don't think Geats is outright delusional, but we got things like their Pre-Fite appearance that at least shows how they think and what they might go after. GBC going up against Geats was very much for the fact that her device felt like one of the few other things I could see Geats integrating believably even though they were destined not to get it. I didn't mention a lot of Boost use specifically for Geats but sometimes with buffs I just kind of write the character as tough enough where you could almost say it's already active. They didn't do a rider kick though, which feels like the first time in a Brawl with a rider we specifically avoided that old chestnut. I don't want to always try it, and maybe I've even said before I avoided it in a Brawl, but Geats definitely feels different from your usual rider. Bit surprised Del said that he was still working on who Geats is behind the mask, I thought I had figured it out!

 

Oona: Let me tell ya, Oona having to fite the Kobbers in RP as well takes some of the weight off me for having her betray her allies. Her entry said she doesn't like to take orders and likes being in command, so we basically got her making alliances but not wanting to deviate from her tactics. I had expected more characters present for when I intended this group severance to occur, but the Brawl moves characters around a lot and you can't always get them back into place! She did have quite a few weapons so I think her lantern got a little lost in the shuffle. I didn't want her to go full army or anything but I also didn't want her on Nath too long, it felt like I was trying to balance a lot of things here with her range of options. At the same time, looking it over, it seems like I got in a lot of her tools despite it feeling like I had so much to consider at one time. I know she's hardly the character with the most options and she doesn't have three pages of spells or anything, I think it was just I could always think of her doing other things and thinning it down was important. I guess that would make sense for a commander character though, and naturally she was the axel the other members of the Death Riders were focused around. I do think Death Riders might have been the weakest alliance name when normally it would probably work really well, but I think it's more the alliance didn't feel like it needed a title despite the joke being it was made in the spur of the moment. Naturally the name comes mostly from Oona herself, maybe if there was more focus on riding then it would have felt a more fitting name.
 

Grimace: The big question hanging over the Brawl would be what would happen with the Grimace Shake. CKR seemed to have considered him just when the meme was taking off of people pretending to die when drinking it, and I've said before I'm hesitant to just throw out a meme and instruct people to be amused that there is, in fact, a meme in front of them. I decided to play into that though, the shake deliberately subverting the expected instant drop to the point I made sure the Pre-Fite showed it wasn't just going to floor someone. I had expected it to be on the bingo before that got canceled, but I didn't want someone to die to the Grimace Shake just for innocently drinking it. I had considered Grimace as the killer of Saccharae before I ended up marking Sugar as killing Saccharae too and having to make a decision that went in Sugar's favor. Grimace would have his big moment where he has a bunch of fiters at his mercy to make it easier to stomach he didn't get kills, and the shakes were a good way to take some people out of the picture for a moment to highlight Marbles and Moulder some. I did remember thinking of them just being nice shakes and they'd help people like Teo or Demo have more options, but the meme got too big and I didn't want to disappoint either. I made sure not to specify why the shakes caused such reactions, not just to keep the mystery of the meme up but so we didn't get any unfortunate questions of how the characters would be after. Grimace was still supposed to be a mostly friendly and dopey character here, and I think it was always going to be a bit hard writing the premise I came up for him that was basically Ronald McDonald letting him do the Purge for one day but with ice cream shakes. I was very happy we got four-armed Grimace, but also, having to say a naked fellow like Grimace had shakes on him made it hard to justify him going nuts with those limbs. I think at one point I mention he sets the shakes down sometimes, but still. Guy needs a kangaroo pouch or something. Mostly I thought it just helped make Grimace work better as a bit of a bruiser even if he lacks the skill to utilize his strength well. I did wonder if any mention should be made of characters like Mac Tonight since McDonald's has had a lot of fite representation funnily enough, but it would be forced and we already had a different musician to focus on with Jukebox Jaw, so no need to muddy the waters.
 

Borea: Not having the necessary context for the Cyber Elves probably made me use them less than I might have had I played the games they appeared in. It wasn't really a reticence or anything, just they maybe would feel a more natural piece of the toolkit if I was used to them being part of a battle repertoire. Mach was in danger of being that, I think maybe it should have helped in the early Snatcher situation for example, but I think a classic case of overcorrection made it pretty important after. I was a bit unsure how to handle its elimination though, like should it be noted special or be shown in the KO shot as deactivated or what. I had intended Little Buddy to do a lot more flying on it than he got in, but it was also a convenient way of moving scrap around faster and more easily. I think it is notable that these days I worry about throwing a character into a fan might be too brutal that I soften the kill a bit in the narration. I really liked Borea's energy in her stuff and I think that made her a lot more fun to write, and she wasn't just Zeph again so I got to do things like guiding the wind or having her make more bold plays. Her hand fans did give me some pause since I was uncertain if they should work in the hands of others so I didn't risk it. Her death I did portray the way I did because I didn't want to invalidate the head protection but also wanted to bust up a meaningful part to show how she was being eliminated and so we get Little Buddy prying the whole piece off. The blade shape of Borea's inner fan did give me pause as well, more in regards on how to describe it, but I also think it conveniently made softening the kill on Aqua easier since these don't look like they'd chop someone up easily. I will admit I had to look at her picture sometimes to avoid slipping into assumptions carried over from writing Zephyrus so much!
 

Xiulan: I feel like I really needed a primer on what Bladesinging is because I played it pretty safe with Xiulan. I tried to look into it more but everything is just like "spells and sword" and that doesn't answer the key questions I have! How much is enchantment, how much is aggression, are they a Spellblade or maybe more like someone who leans on buffs or dancer/bardic style augmentation? So many sources just say "spell and sword"! This is why I played things pretty safe, using a lot of suggested powers or going for ones I felt clean and straightforward. Her entry mentions a bunch of components without elaboration too so again, played VERY safe and didn't really address how that was going to work out! I know, this is the part where someone says I should have asked Harpy, but I did expect the provided D&D link to work but then you read it and it's a lot of standard buffs while the entry says she's got cool green fire blades too. I was a bit worried she'd end up not doing dullahan shenanigans so I took the chance moment I conceived of one. As for why she was fiting above her weight class quite a bit, well, that's another case of me snagging on a specific weakness! Sometimes the weaknesses slide on through untouched, but Xiulan's said she loves a challenge and wouldn't know when to back down, so trying to take on giants felt in line with that! I mean, in RP she'd probably do the same, and she did have back-up for a while so it wasn't totally foolish. At the same time, I did try to avoid having her trapped on just stabbing Clownpiece's toe the whole time, which lead to an earlier separation where she could fite people more on her level. I'm sorry I didn't make her cooler Harp!

Ravi Force:I was very happy to get these bunnies, so while there were three of them and that meant it was easy to hand out kills on them to help lower ranked entries, I did not want them to chump out. I did second guess which bunny should die where and to who quite a bit even in the midst of writing the Brawl, I almost think my notes have Seiran and Ringo swapped if I didn't update them. Mainly, I remember the baZUNka (not BUNzuka despite what I keep trying to write) being a potential valued tool that Roman and Neo would kill them to steal themselves. These girls were packing a lot of tools and I'm a little surprised I covered so many of them, but a bit like DD's Mana Burn I did see the Weapon Break Gel spray as something with so much potential but also I was worried about utilizing it because it could so easily neuter an entrant if used carelessly. Reisen's weapon being mentioned as being meant for kaijus is what made me decide they'd take down Trigger, especially since doing so not only showed they were very capable but felt like it tied well to their military presentation. Naturally I didn't want them to attack Clownpiece despite that maybe being in character (they'd justify it as being a way to test if they could have after all and it would be fine in a Brawl) but despite not really telling myself to avoid user characters fiting, I think that was for the most part achieved this year. Alliances did intersect and characters sometimes swung at another person owned by the same user, but I didn't see anyone really needing to step up much and half a Fite Yer' Self. I meant for Reisen's drugs to really help with a later inversion of fortune for Ashley but realized the prep time needed meant Ashley wouldn't have the stuff already used by the bunnies. This did mean Ashley didn't have a big comeback tool but instead mild help that made a one-armed heavily injured witch feel a touch more capable of keeping the fite up though. Funnily enough, while we had groundbound touhou this Brawl, I also kept the bunnies pretty much on the pavement, it just felt like it suited who they were fiting. Reisen was the exception though because the teleportation power really felt like it opened up her navigation so I had a lot of fun playing with it. Ashley using Reisen's gun did make me wonder about its rules, but I didn't get too ambitious with it not just because I worried it might have limits, but because I felt Ashley would also not know how it works.

 

Death Doll: I remember having to message Brine while writing the Brawl about DD's unusual weapon. It's a stick with a bunch of pointy jagged spikes coming out the end, but it's not really a single thing. Not a mace, not a bat with nails, maybe there's a word for it, but I also like that it's not too straigthforward. Maybe if DD used it in RP some more it could have earned a name. Death Stick or something like that sounds fun! I do know initially my mind just turned it into a scythe but it's important to look over entries multiple times! Most of the time I read them once for the entry, again for taking notes, and then occasionally when Brawl writing. I actually keep one version of the Brawl thread open and close spoilers to mark characters off when they're gone, and while not every character is behind a spoiler, those images out in the open also help me keep track of where I am in the thread! I get to know who entered before and after people like me and CKR. Anyway, this is about DD, and her puppet powers were an interesting consideration. Fully controlling another brawler could be a sketchy situation. I do wish I remembered more that Donny's arm got turned into wicker so I could bring that up more, but whenever I did remember, it wasn't like there was someone to set his arm on fire. Her manipulation of Reduin's limb was there so I didn't completely disregard that though. Stuffy Doll and Mana Burn could have been so fun too! I was even on the look out for a good mana burn moment, but completely wiping out someone's magic could really wreck certain brawlers. I'll always have these feelings for any Brine entry who doesn't go the distance, even when he trims them down to tidy lists like what we got for the spells this time. I think the important part was still showing her puppet powers, and perhaps her personality was the limiter on why she didn't do it in a more devious way. These people will be her friends later hopefully, she doesn't want to be really mean! I do remember thinking her exact constitution would matter more, to the point I noted the specific mixture her doll body is made of. Guess with things like wood and flesh in there you never know!

 

Ultraman Trigger: I think I did a pretty good job preserving the big guy's reputation even though he placed 53rd! It helps we had powerhouses like Clownpiece and the Ravi Force who literally had plans and strategies for fiting a giant too. The obvious increased focus he got also was good for keeping him busy when he wasn't directly fiting people. The people who could handle a kaiju-sized brawler were busy with him instead of us asking why he isn't interfering in other fites so much. Being so big did basically guide him this Brawl compared to his champion run. He killed the special mode of the train and mostly sticks to picking on people his own size. I know there was the small form brought up as a possible way for him to fite on a different level, but at the same time, I think embracing the bigness was the better route. He wasn't going to hold back, he wanted to make a good impression with his new forms, and really, those new forms got the spotlight! I barely brushed on the old power and sky form since we had spent a whole brawl with them already, and his new Glitter and Truth were basically sort of a mix of them in some ways anyway. The fact Joy's electricity and Valerio's wind were split across forms was perhaps a complication that lead to me underutilizing those powers, and I think I could have definitely used more wind. Naturally his kill on Promethean Fire was based on a finisher from the source material, although I did regret how it was described a little as I wanted O'Malley to take a train car. We can assume enough was left working even if the picture makes it look worse. I still did let some small people like Kogasa pick on him a bit, and the fact that Claire was running circles around him was more an attempt to address her power than make Trigger look worse. Anyone would have been overwhelmed if she gets away with her future sight trickery to such a degree! I think if Valerio had always been Trigger's host we could have done a rule where Trigger could un-henshin but then Valerio wouldn't have brawled last year or probably be back this year, so that's a what-if with too many knock on effects. When the transfer did happen in RP though I was relieved it would simplify some things and even open this option up (moreso that Trigger wouldn't be insta-eliminated but Valerio would probably not be allowed to fite much unless it was in self-defense until they could become a giant again).

Danai: Since we hadn't seen Danai yet this year I really didn't expect her, but her presence definitely was one of the driving factors of the Aquatic Alliance coming to be. She had more control over water than anyone, even outdoing Aqua in terms of wielding the ocean's full might. If there wasn't an alliance, all people who wanted to use the water would have to answer to Danai's impressive might! I didn't want to waste little touches like using a trident or having the different forms she could transform into, which is why her fites did get up close more than you might expect from someone who is essentially a caster who can have the battlefield advantage against people who couldn't approach her easily. Her being reticent to call on sea life to fite for her did make me restrict how often she did it, the whole "stranded whale" joke was something I almost did more in reaction to wanting to have the whale beached but not be mean to Danai! I guess technically I didn't want a whale to die either, I guess I treated some of the animals she summoned with more kid gloves but I think certain brawlers wouldn't want to just kill the wildlife either. Danai has the ability to camouflage in the water that I almost wondered if she should use before the fire fiters came to try and stop her attacks but I felt it was a needless complication and they would have just found her some other way like having a good eye for water movement. Her ability to change her mermaid parts to mimic other animals was perhaps the part I was most interested in using but also didn't feel I could really spend much time on. Too long fiting Tamaki would probably start to tip things too against Tamaki getting that kill and I don't want to cycle powers quickly in an awkward way just to say they did show up. The impact or use is as important as the presence. I did anticipate the tidal wave she helped prepare having a bigger impact but realized I couldn't do that too well, people can't fite sloshing around all the time too well, and I decided wind storms might be too disruptive as well so that never got too out of control either. Considering her placement though it doesn't feel like she was pointlessly avoiding them, she just didn't have the time to conjure and got pressured before she could go ham.

 

Alexandra:It would have been very easy to put Alexandra with Jasmine and the gang, but her entry specifically mentions some reticence about it, and so, a new path was chosen! In fact, one reason why it was Oona was because the commander was specifically the kind of assertive person who'd recruit someone, and with Alexandra being too timid to approach, it made sense for her to BE approached. Plus, she's a demon, so, she fits. While her demonic form wasn't called a Rage Mode I did keep mentally calling it that and that was actually a big reason why she ended up encountering Dexter. While it wasn't sparked by rage, I felt the cat's ability to mess with people could conceivably draw it out still without raising too many questions. It helps too that it's normally a gradual transformation but I could quickly shove it along with the Red Lantern. It's not like she wasn't wounded a bunch yet! I did worry I wouldn't get to have fun with all her magic, but the purple people eater and alliance at least helped with that, and I even remembered her little buckler! I do know I intended to have her Putrefy some ground and never found the right moment, partly because she had been noted to need organic material and places like a rooftop didn't feel like they had enough. I did wonder how far I could push her hydrokinesis since it sounded like it wasn't meant to be too strong and as a result I kept it that way. I also remember thinking I wasn't really using her horns but she didn't seem like the type to headbutt except in a dire strait.

 

Ryuji and Saccharae: A funny thing happened on the way to killing Saccharae. Mainly, early plans was she would go on without Ryuji for quite a while. In fact, Grimace was slated to kill her, but I had also marked Sugar down as killing her when attributing kills early on and I was left wondering how I should handle it. Sugar was sort of ivel's new hotness and I didn't want her to go down without getting in something good, so Saccharae's fate shifted around. I do feel maybe I was a little too reserved in using her powers, perhaps because I didn't really have a good sense what I wanted their limit to be since she was noted as having one. I didn't want them to be simple though, but I do think if she stuck around like initially planned she might have whipped out some more impressive concoctions. Ryuji's cooking battle style I also think I would have had a good deal more fun with had he made it much further. The Jyamato don't necessarily have fruits like the thing they're protecting but it still felt like a safe pick for a foe he could cook. Naturally, if Little Buddy had done worse though, Ryuji would have been slated to fry him up in a second. Ryuji being chummy with the Wonder Chefs also meant people like Demo he could have maybe messed around with more food during the fite were a bit off the table, but at the same time them helping him meant he got some stuff with Demo so it feels more a matter of direction than something being missed. I think he had a good moment though when he stood up for the alliance. While there's a lot of focus on KO count and the like, I think a good moment in the Brawl shines longer than some KOs, and Ryuji showed he was a man worth respecting! Saccharae's notes do mention pies and I wish in retrospect I had her like, dead serious throw a pie in someone's face. We haven't seen too much of her but even in the Pre-Fite I felt like she was sort of a good counterbalance to her more absurd allies with her more serious outlook. Perhaps if I did have a recommendation though, I would have said send Ryuji in with some spices or oils! I guess that would be a different sort of battle approach though but I think he could have more directly "cooked" opponents, not that I feel he didn't get his chance to show he fought as a chef first.

 

Sugar: I have a confession: despite this format choice, I've been writing entries out of order just as the whim strikes me. This means I've talked about Sugar elsewhere a bunch already and only now am I getting to her! I actually like the Cold Zeal shotgun name more than Black Typhoon for the bike, but I avoided too many weapon names for her and Milk to avoid confusion. Not like it's hard to say bike or shotgun. Milk's section goes more into the Nikke thoughts I had and how I didn't want to commit to how much of these girls is flesh or metal. I wonder if Byakuren hadn't entered with a motorbike I made a very big point of utilizing consistently in a recent enough Brawl that I would have maybe tried to do more with Sugar's bike. Her being in an alliance with less mobile people did mean it didn't get huge play, and a shotgun is a pretty strong fiting tool! Her being in an alliance with others was definitely a reference to her entry saying she's kind and friendly and that's why she lets Dorothy flirt with her without being unreceptive, although I also didn't have her reciprocate since she's fairly new! With her also entering RYM I wouldn't be surprised to see her another Brawl and some ivel entries do need to get their "fite legs" a bit. I'll definitely try to play around the bike and shotgun better. I do feel a little bad her only direct KO was one she regretted as Oona was turning her against others, but Sugar was still meant to be a force to be reckoned with. Watching her in the source game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNhsQLej5go) I'm surprised first by the butt jiggle physics and second by how the gameplay looks. I specifically didn't have her be flippant with her bike since her entry makes it clear she values that thing but here she uses it as cover! I did try to make sure her first Brawl wasn't without its moments for her, but while I thought she'd be good for a team, maybe she would have worked better independent or only really alongside Cafe Sweety characters. Maybe we'll have our chance to see in another year!

 

Calado Calmante:It kind of took a bit for it to click in my head that Calado takes things but cannot give them. I originally though of them taking the bearhood of something and applying it to another to get Shirtless Bear Fighter to face them before realizing it was a one way street, but we still had this show up in the Pre-Fite to kind of show the strange routes and fascination Calado had for things. Calado's "body" was a hard thing to imagine dying even though I was given instructions on it, hence why the ultimate kill method was kind of just spreading it out. Rather than finding a way to strike it dead on for damage, I figured Dawn could figure out a demigod enough. I did ultimately plan it for just plain dissipation, but the water I think added another layer of believability to Calado being so spread out there was no hope of them coming together in the Brawl. I did kind of give Calado a bit of an ethereal side to their childishness, just kind of doing things but explaining it in a nearly haunting way like when Calado just set people up to see how they'd fite each other. The extreme holiness was something I anticipated being more relevant especially with some of the fiters running about but I opted not to draw from it much, especially since it was described as so potent it might obliterate someone like maybe Oona or Tricky with ease. In some ways it's good Calado went down before Tricky started become a consistent problem. Calado is also weak to light but that didn't factor in too much, I think again because I settled on dissipation early as the kill method so I didn't dive into other weaknesses. I think Calado was a fun twist on the transformation entry, Yuna had a more solid form for example but while I had Calado steal friction mostly for how it would mess up Dawn, I realized very quickly that someone composed of a bunch of airborne material gaining heavy friction would be quite a murder blender and ran with it. I did frequently mention feathers as part of Calado's composition even though I think the art is meant to be all leaves, just some of them are the type that looks like it has the same veins as a feather! Still, it makes the form feel a little less plant-based to avoid the mind trending too much towards the idea this demigod might be a plant. I did reread some of the Calado event last year but at the same time, Calado does seem to be moving in a new direction so I didn't want to regress them. It's not often you get a plot's final boss in the brawl!

 

Scars: I didn't expect another Scars run so soon, but I was glad for her new weapon. The lightning shaped Bane became a big focus and she didn't break her back-up tricks this time. Naturally, her having a blade like Bane and her usual predilections made me pick her as Tricky's initial killer although I did feel a touch bad that her KO was sort of undone by his repeated revivals. Since she's been described as the sort of Batman of Oasis I did try to have her be more stealthy, which helps when she isn't stapled to Julia, but her big alliance being with her perhaps didn't impede her as much as the Pre-Fite implied it would. Considering Kobbers usually fite in a big mess anyway, that's not too surprising. She's still the dogged fiter we saw last Brawl, but perhaps there could have been something to pump her up more so it didn't feel like just a second round. A lot of what I'd have to say about her has already been covered in Pre-Fite talk and Neptune's section, although since she was the "serious" one she was kind of the New Alliance of Good's leader for her time with them since she could actually guide them well enough. I did wonder about the framing of her fite with Tricky since I was worried it implied too many of the other characters were merely standing back, but we also broke that illusion when they did start getting a bit involved. Scars was noted before as not demanding honor in combat, but she was uniquely qualified for that battle so it makes some sense people didn't want to get in the way of blades that could easily slice them without effort. Vrock being picked to kill her was obviously meant to have a tough person be the one to put down the determined little warrior. Her death even being a quick kill ties into her stated weakness of technically being fragile, although her dive towards Vrock despite the deadly contagion in her was still one of those moments where it wasn't the smartest move, but it's meant to show she wasn't just going to sit and wait for the next hit even if she didn't have much left to give.
 

Raihan: Pretty early I decided Hummer would be the brawler that Dark Mind possesses and initially, Hummer wouldn't even get the revenge kill! It was supposed to go to Yuuma but I realized it was much more appropriate for the Flygon to gets it revenge and give this group a big moment. I did almost not have Raihan even briefly face Iono since I was working him towards being in place for Dark Mind, and I do think Raihan himself probably took a bit of a back seat to his buddies this time. Not strange for a Pokemon trainer though. Gooms being gigantic didn't end up leaving as big an impact as Gatekeeper, but again, kind of the point! Doing a new angle, Gooms was strong support and a danger but didn't change the battlefield too much beside taking out the ice golem. Hummer was the star this go round by design to make up for its second fiddle to Gatekeeper last time, and I even worked that in as a niggling thing to pull on for Dark Mind to complete the conversion! I'm sure Hummer loves their trainer, but a weather setter isn't often a Pokemon in the team with lofty expectations placed upon them. I did enjoy having a lot of aggressive weather this year, Shadow Sky being the big one. I did waver on how dangerous it should be, but I think it really came about as an excuse to move people and because I sometimes have thoughts like how Flygon should probably always be trying to put up sand if it can, so why wouldn't it try so when evil? The name for that effect is from Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness's expanded shadow move set, and maybe I'd compare it's damage to acid rain. People don't get dissolved by that stuff in real life but it does sting! I did feel a little bad having Gooms betrayed/killed by Hummer which is one big reason the Flygon got their chance to avenge them, but I also knew they shouldn't continue on after since then it would be a bit awkward. We don't need to consider the mind of a Flygon here, just accept they did a really cool kill. If Raihan does Brawl again, I'd encourage considering the rotation. That's not me saying I'll totally focus in on Gooms the hardest next time, but I do think the shifting team worked at least from a narrative sense even though the characters ended up placing low. That's on the tractor though!

 

Emerald and Mercury: I actually wasn't sure if Mercury and Emerald were together or not since their entry implies Mercury's attraction to Emerald is a secret, but post-Brawl, they've used relationship terms! I did basically just ship tease here, things like Mercury happily leaning on Emerald and Emerald being very upset for losing her ally.  Naturally, I watched some RWBY fites starring this pair of characters but I only really saw one Emerald illusion and mostly relied on the wiki description for the hallucinations. I almost wonder if her hallucinations being called illusions in the entry is one reason I was certain Ashley would do an illusion steal, but her entry specifies its character specific so I'm glad I hunted down some specifics! Meanwhile, Mercury never used his Silver Eyes, but being powered by love and trust is really the kind of power you'd want a big moment to fuel. Probably the kind of big moment you'd get late in the game, and with people in the lower rankings needing some kills, someone had to go and that was Mercury. He did have the less flexible fiting style is the main reason he went down first, kicks require a lot of proximity while Emerald had three modes for her weapons! I avoided using the term kusarigama for her blades on chains just to avoid people having to stop and think about it. If they were the only mode for the weapon I'd namecheck it, but the blades are already the less recognizable kama. I think the Aura system mattered the most for these characters, like I specifically remember Emerald's management of it coming up a few times. I did forego use of the Team ERMN branding partly because they didn't really fite alongside each other long, but they also fought alongside Sam and Chastity so it also wouldn't be an all encompassing alliance designation for that time they did. Maybe in a brawl that wasn't going to have Ashley go nuts with illusions I would have gone crazier with Emerald's hallucinations, but like I said with Ashley, I really didn't want to just keep doing the same simple ideas for how you can trick someone!

Maribel and Renko: I had thought we might not even see much of the two girls with how much their train might dominate the show, and yet, I feel like they got a lot of focus! They didn't last long, but their fiting early against You and all focused in on them and their thoughts and words. I think the dynamic was just a bit fun, the overly serious verbose Maribel with her edginess and Renko just being the kind of normal energetic HarpGirl. The fact Maribel eventually uses the name "Operation: Dumbo Drop" was meant to be her breaking character a bit as she remembers Renko in her moment of need or else she'd never say anything like that! I'd say I'd like them to go further to write the dynamic more but I don't know if that would be the case unless they went really deep, since basically every time they got focus something changed on how they fought. The train being described as sentient was something I wasn't sure how much to focus on, down to what the interior of the train should look like. In Bravely Default it's a pretty clear train design so basically I figured that the inside was like that but maybe a bit more reinforced to avoid cooking the occupants. However, since they were two people conducting this train, that must mean Promethean isn't entirely independent, right? Hence, the ability for O'Malley to control it after death and the early focus on the girls working hard to guide it. Even though it has some self-control, Renko's GPS ended up a surprisingly important ability! It's the kind of detail I'd maybe make a joke about but I realized it was perfect for a flying train and a girl with portals to coordinate well.  It did mean Renko couldn't do much in a fite, but I think this was definitely a case where I portrayed how entrants complement each other well by removing one early and seeing the necessary shifts. Maribel "seeing the boundary between worlds" is a phrasing that got me to mark it word-for-word in my notes, but it never meant much more than portals. I remember some narration almost mentioning it, but I think if anything the only unusual application could have been something like popping into Dawn's bolthole or Snatcher's shadow zone. While no height was given for Promethean Fire's deluxe mode I did write it assuming Trigger had quite the advantage size wise, although I don't think I drew it the way I'd want to. I imagine it's shape being a very basic one train car for every limb and a few for the head/body, but that might make it too small so maybe more like two cars each? Didn't need to be said though, so no worries there!

Tanya: Like everyone else, I expected her to enter with Damien, but I think not having a partner also guided the writing to focus in more on her specifically. The hidden benefit of running solo! Tanya's magic gestures were definitely the focus, although I probably should have done more of the combos that were mentioned in her entry. I think the idea it was sort of a Genshin magic mixing system that I don't really have the mental shorthand for yet, so instead it ended up more about me trying to figure out cool gestures to match each elemental attack. The ice kick for example was me noticing that her entry really only mentioned gestures with her arms so I wanted to think about how you can channel elements when there could be conceptual overlap otherwise. You can't finger gun for every spell! A kick with an ice trial is probably something I pulled from somewhere in my mind, like maybe Glacius or some other fighting game character like MVC Iceman did it. It wasn't an intentional reference, just me liking the visual of ice expanding out from the attack. In retrospect I do wish I had CKR do the Tanya art though because I think I drew her very poorly both in face and posing. A funny thing about that flying cape requiring effort to really utilize was that it made me hard to imagine her doing aerial casting. Gesture based spells doesn't mix with the necessary motions of a Mario cape! I do hope I at least did the cape in general justice even if, again, maybe I should have thought more about its combo potential. I did feel like Tanya having an alliance still felt a bit crucial though, even if it lead to her running with some conceptually similar characters like Morgan. A broad spellcaster on their own might feel a touch destined for a rough fite, and in some ways that's one way alliance help with reader perception. If Tanya was scoring hits in a regular skirmish, you'd probably think her death is approaching or she's destined for a KO. I did try and throw in some intersections of lone fiters here and there this Brawl that didn't lead to them doing something huge. It's not all about subverting expectations, sometimes it's just to make sure it doesn't feel like you can shuffle a bit forward since you can sense what's coming! I do remember moments where I tried to think of her doing fun things with MAge Hand, but someone needs to buff Mage Hand because every idea I had rubbed up against lame D&D rules on why it wasn't strong enough or capable enough.
 

Spider-Ham: Spider-Ham's spider sausages were meant to have a much longer life than he did, originally carrying on with both Mutsumi and Demo both before the earlier mentioned decision not to have Demo retain the recipe came up in my head. I do think he should get a little credit for catching Hina though so long after his death! Just like with Knud, a trap going off well after it's been forgotten is fun and shows the chaos of the Brawl. I do think maybe the whole web-swinging thing doesn't really work in most Brawl arenas though which I think limited some of his potential, and from the way CKR talked to me on the phone she really didn't sound like she was huge on his cartoon portrayal from Spider-Verse being core to him here. I tried to balance it out but I think if she had more willingly embraced it I would have emphasized it a lot more. For example, I didn't think a hammerspace hammer was what CKR wanted out of him, but I wager she would have been fine with the way he died instantly turning him into a well-served ham. I do think CKR's origin for him was a delight, but I also think the reason his pre-fite appearance played out the way it did was me trying to more clearly display how he is this universe's Spider-Ham rather than what one might expect from the media he's been in. At the same time, I think that's partly why his cartoony nature didn't feel as appropriate here. He's not a dimensional visitor or some such so where would the loony tunes bonkers nonsense come from? I think it's important also not to get too clowny, it's easy for someone to just run through custard pie throwing and some such as if there was a quota for antics to hit. I think things like him walking on the dock in the pre-fite was more in line with how I'd handle it, just kind of a casual strangeness that isn't offputting but shows he has a different idea of how logical the world is. I do, ultimately, believe I should have been funnier with him though, AVM Man ended up with more gags!

Joy: Joy's approach this Brawl really helps us avoid having to worry too much about her placement! She was defending the reigning champ and all and he's a giant, so her going down means her approach can account for the 65th place. Cornwind actually told me about Deus Vult form before it appeared in RP in case I wanted to whip it out in a previous Brawl but the circumstances never felt right, especially when it was proposed as a tool for Trigger but giving Trigger his win on his own merits feels like the right way to go. Her power level was perhaps a bit absurd in this form though, but at the same time she limited it some by being a defender so we really didn't have to consider the implications of her incredible speed and electricity output. There are definitely times when writing I worry I'm underselling the impact of something like an electric shock, but there's also the consideration there's maximum output and point of contact and all if we really had to carve up why someone didn't turn to goo from the electrocution. I perhaps didn't portray her as feral like the entry says she is, but she didn't also get caught up in things that show she wasn't a single-minded devoted guardian of the big guy. Naturally, Promethean Fire felt like a good counter though, not caring about shocks and already an obvious pick for attacking Trigger to initiate these conflicts. I think her incredible stated strength did make me reticent to overuse her though. She wasn't idle, but I guess it also helps she was very physical so she had to get in to do damage and I could work around that some. It almost didn't really feel like writing her at times, as I'd recall some of her old capabilities and need to remind myself she's not packing her old Brawl tricks.
 

Beck: I was definitely worried in the grand scheme of things Beck would drop hard. It had been many years since he had been around doing things and there wasn't like, a new game to get him in people's minds. I even feared putting him in an alliance after his entry specifically mentions he was trying to avoid being tied to someone like Jewel Man again who'd harm his chances. I guess 66th place still isn't superb or anything, but I think his alliance kept him pretty active before the fall and I believe he did a good deal! Partly it was a similar situation to Kaydence, I kept saying in my head he should be doing things but for him it was more pressing. I really enjoyed being able to pull in the tools of the other Mighty Numbers though, and I think that may be a big part of why I felt him so successful. If he needed a trick, he had a bunch of other characters with cool abilities he could swap to, a swiss army knife of a fiter. I did mostly pull from the bosses I remembered better, although Brandish's blade I had forgotten despite it being a really strong fit for giving him a battle style shift. The others being elements or weapon types that didn't require too much explanation helped, and one reason I avoided his bulldozer style form was I didn't want to bog things down talking about the whole transformation of his shape. His specific death to Tanya was me again thinking Xel has to be killed in a special way to feel plausible. Perhaps I got a little too caught up in the Mighty Number abilities when I could have focused on other elements of him, more the fancy Xel modes like Overclock and Barrage, but I've said it before, some things stay on the table to prevent it feeling like signpost when the big guns come out! Beck's case though, it was definitely more "too many toys, not enough time."

 

Neptune: Nep Ninja! The ninja form definitely influenced her being part of the New Alliance of Good. I wouldn't be surprised if she was destined for them anyway, but the whole joke of the Pre-Fite where people were popping out of nowhere worked really well with a ninja gimmick. I was definitely happy to finally do the big Eggplant moment after a rather weak mention of it in a previous Brawl as I felt it hadn't been delivered on for so long. You can't just toss it in, you might miss special moment like Eggplant Man killing your entry! ...Maybe some people would want to miss it. Neptune definitely benefits from my increased familiarity and comfortableness with how to write her as I had jokes like the Nep Nep Nep-Nobu Nobu Nobu exchange in my head before many other details. I did feel a little bad killing her so soon after AVM Man takes on his eggplant form (the eggplant is a vegetable in cooking joke also was a very early conceived joke) but also, if it's going to help get the kill, it feels it needs to be close to when the person falls! Neptune killing Neo was definitely tied to the ninja gimmick too, I was definitely thinking of a lurking Neo running into a lurking Nep, although its shape was a bit different in the final form of the Brawl. In retrospect I do think it's a touch odd I emphasize she's bad at sneaking in narration but she never failed at it when trying. Maybe we underestimate this wannabe-protagonist! I almost didn't even touch on Purple Heart this time, and when I had her transform I worried about it because the eggplant moment was coming down the line. De-transforming in absolute distaste felt silly enough though I didn't decide against the brief boost. Also, small excerpt from my notes: "EGGPLANT EGGPLANT DON'T FORGET" it was really important I do it, okay? I'm sure we could have got something from the cooking characters if nothing else, but AVM Man was too perfect!

 

Jyamato Riders:I already mentioned elsewhere I did not expect the Jyamato Riders to appear in my absence in RP, nor did I expect them to be as vulnerable as they were depicted in the Aqualand infiltration event. To be fair, in a Brawl, everyone's a lot more dogged and durable, I'd let my own character get wrecked on a plot with little damage needed but here they'd need to keep fiting to be interesting! Naturally I looked up the Riders on the wiki and started to get a feel for exactly how their powers manifested, but there are a range of Jyamatos in the show and I had to sort out which ones actually lined up with the characters presented. Their presentation as basically sentinels for protection their tree lead to things like them not caring about potentially breaking the rule about not fiting before the Brawl and how they were basically just a force for fiting. They didn't banter or do crazy strategies, they were just kind of killing machines, hence why Laurent was just battered til he stopped moving. Geats's entry mentions they might get drivers from other entrants and I had no idea who else could provide one, but luckily the wiki lists individual pieces of the Jyamato battle suit and they were the obvious pick for some pilfering. The vine transference ended up an important part of Geats's final stand! Drawing them felt difficult because I didn't want their faces to be a nonsense mess of lines but even from a good angle it's still hard to make out much of a face for these plant fiters. I do like having some villains in a Brawl of course because they can force out unusual alliances or attack in ways that don't make the reader question why it was so violent and, in turn, why they were treated so violently. Ryuji wouldn't cook just anyone's face! Their entry noting they were surprisingly resistant to flames probably helped me avoid some plant-based fiter cliches too, and considering Morgan would go up against them, it did matter too! While Harvester is the one I liked more in a fite since a scythe has more applications than mere punching, I almost gave Bruiser the kill to make up for the fact I knew I'd favor Harvester in the writing. Bruiser was probably more intimidating too do it always trying to get in close. The names for the two riders came easily when I realized they should be something more than Male and Female, as in I didn't even consider any others before I asked SK if it was okay to use them. Maybe they were more creative options, but sometimes you can be a little too clever and it becomes harder to remember who is being referred to!

 

Roman and Neo: I don't know if I ever referred to Neo as Neopolitan at all this Brawl. More importantly, since it was time to write these two, I went and looked up a lot of their fites from RWBY, although not all of them. Funnily enough, one major motivation was to try and get a feel for Roman's ability to turn into a smoke, only for me to look up his wiki page and learn that was a Sey invention! Also, so is the fact that Roman and Neo are related! I had thought Sey was sticking pretty close to canon but she's made some inventions that will probably forever stick in my head over the source material.  Roman's cane has this flip function where a sight pops up when he's ready to fire his cane, and for some reason I really wanted to write that fact out but at the same time, mentioning that detail seemed like it could slow things down a touch. In the show, Roman's gun-cane fires white shots of some description but his entry doesn't specify what exactly he fires, so I kept it a tiny bit vague to leave it up to Sey to clarify later. They did sort of act like the white shots and no one who got hit ever picked at a bullet or anything for that reason! Neo, in what I saw of her, did a few tricks like pretending to be other people, but the big one that stuck with me was probably a moment where she's next to Roman and the camera remains on them, but the RWBY girls attack and at some point they went from real to illusion to cover an escape. That definitely influenced how her illusions were represented, and I definitely liked the glass shattering effect enough to make sure it was frequently mentioned as part of the illusion break. I did separate them for their deaths specifically so they didn't have time to really get worked up over each other falling, although I do think this was probably another situation where I might have liked to distant their downfalls a bit more. Not that a divide and conquer strat from an alliance feels unbelievable for that. I believe their kill on a bunny girl was initially imagined much stealthier, almost like a sort of blindside or divide and conquer, but the way it happened was probably designed more to make sure the Ravi Force didn't have any single member go down too easy. I definitely feel like I could have used the smoke power more, like sometimes I ruminate after the fact on what I could have done but I know as Roman's KO came and went in writing I thought that very thought.

 

Amy and Esme:I might have felt a little worse about killing Amy off early if not for one thing: Hakra. Already we had a brawler spend decent time doing the constellation magic so it didn't feel like it was missing out on that fun pool of potential, but also, this time around I kind of inverted my approach. Rather than trying to concoct my own constellation spells, I went for the suggested ones and better known constellations so it would still feel different from Hakra's that required wiki visits and new spins on what a spell could be. Maybe could have emphasized the fire and light magic more but also, despite being "fine" with her going down so early because of Hakra, I also didn't want to not do fun constellation things! Esme's color magic was new though and open for basically the interpretive spell-casting you've come to expect from me! I didn't want colors to have their possible meaning stretched too much, colors have certain feels to them and if you have to explain it too much you're probably not doing the magic right. At the same time, I didn't want to just do things like red for fire the whole time. I think the fact it came pre-existing with associations with buffing magic helped in that regard, although if Esme had done better you can bet a buffed up Natasha would have got more hands-on in fites. Esme's entry mentions fortune-telling abilities and I really wanted to work that in, but it feels a touch odd for her to come to a stop and do it. It's another one of those things that might have had a moment if they got further, but you have to live fast and fite fast when you're low on the ladder so her stopping to see the future wouldn't really work. I think I even anticipated her seeing the Snatcher betrayal that way and accidentally triggering it to try and prevent it. Calado getting to play with the paint was definitely a way to stretch out its use more, but it also felt right for the demigod to play in that space while giving them a nifty power to make for a more interesting fite.

 

Tricky the Clown: I wasn't going to let 71st place invalidate the whole idea from his source material that Tricky is hard to kill. I did have to go with the whole "he can be killed but the device auto-corrects to him alive" angle, and I didn't want him kicking around the whole time so it was sporadic revivals and the device was in various states of functioning properly, but it was a fun angle to pursue! I knew immediately I wanted two revivals, one with the white fiery demon form and another with the skeletal one, and I really could have kept digging for more Trickies if I wanted to. I watched some video that had every moment Tricky was on screen in Madness so I made sure to include the whole bold YOU CAN'T KILL THE CLOWN thing, but it was sometimes more early 2000s and I left out the !!!!1 and intentional mispellings so it wasn't corny. I very much did want to reference the Chicken Dance remix he plays in an early appearance but couldn't find an opening since I played him pretty brutally, I wondered if him turning Frankenberry's arm into a bone weapon might have been too much! I did want him to get at least one kill when he returned from the dead, hence why Marbles got taken out that way, and Mutsumi taking out his demon form was part of that "moment" ethos mentioned elsewhere where a character is given a cool action even if it maybe doesn't show on the scoreboards like a true KO. I probably did fudge the rules on how the Improbability Drive should work but I'm sure Spy didn't mind. I did sort of resist some of the abilities he was noted as having since some seem to connect to his odd mix of powers from different stages in Madness. I actually meant to have the whole "heal someone to keep them fiting" thing done much sooner in the Brawl though. One thing I really enjoyed about Tricky being so low in the rankings though was I could do the joke where every fite before his death he was getting in on somehow. It couldn't have worked if he kept going deep in before shifting forms or something, but Tricky was just full Madness, trying to get in his punches all the time no matter the risk to himself. The way he kept not dying in the Scars fite was also meant to hide a bit that there was a lot more left to see with him, although it's not like I hid the drive's presence as Marbles brought it around. I think when he used it on Kaydence it was supposed to be a bigger deal before I decided to let it simmer longer. I think I had more fun with him than Hank because it was easier to go nuts with a clown who won't stay dead.

 

Frankenberry: Such lofty expectations for Frankenberry dashed against the cruel reality of the tractor. If he had made it further we would have definitely gotten more flirtatious moments, but I knew from the start he was destined to face off with Crygor. A flamboyant scientist and a flamboyant science experiment made it all too perfect for them to intersect. The Pre-Fite sadly ended up where we could most see the monster in action, but I had thought of doing more with things like his chains had he made it far or had him lose pieces more often. I even was considering things for what his cereal could do in Demo's hands, although with Grimace in the Brawl, I didn't really know what angle to go with the whole idea it's a healthy alternative. Usually the healthy version tastes worse or, more worryingly, causes violent reactions in the guts of those who eat it. Well, guess what? Grimace Shake memes beat this punchline to the punch! I think maybe if he had more abilities he might have put up an impressive fite too. I was on the phone with CKR when she was asking which characters were safe to enter and she seemingly wanted a Cereal Monster in general and was thinning the choices, and it very much seems like her choice was locked in after a debate between Frankenberry and Booberry when she found that sexy art of him. I do think one thing that got her on that tract was me telling her Whalestrand is spooky, although it sounded like she also considered just a full on buffet of food-related entries. I believe AVM Man was meant to be a technicality even, considering the Vegetable part of his name. Spider-Ham had the Spider-Sausages, you can see where she tried to make it work... but then Cornifer who was also one of the first she asked about so I guess she really wanted that map bug!
 

Wiz and Boomstick: It was a pretty easy pick to have Boomstick outlast Wiz for the Death Battle duo. Sure, Wiz is the strategist so it would make sense if he was kicking around longer, but Boomstick was the fun silly one! And, of course, a guy like him is designed to get an awesome kill. His kill on Old One-Eye did make sure to mention the grenade blast on top of the drawn shotgun shot just in case it felt like a bullet to the brain was too little for the constantly regenerating creature, although I did also wonder about the idea of having explosives in his artificial leg. It certainly is in-character, but I mulled over things like an accidental detonation or even how much he should use them considering the unusual way he'd have to grab for them. While I haven't touched Death Battle in a long time, I did look up compilations of when the two appeared in animated form. Wiz's art used in RP is a lot more unhinged looking than he acts or the "official" look he got in those animations, but I think watching them helped me avoid Wiz leaning too hard into mad science. I definitely think that helped me have the line delivery done for the Pre-Fite and it helped cement ideas like how often Boomstick does go for a beer in my mind so it could come up some. One thing too about Boomstick getting the One Eye kill was it was meant to show he can do analysis too and learn a weakness! I believe Wiz's arm specifically is one of the big inspirations behind Big Buddy's specific integration of Kobber weaponry, specifically, the idea of it kind of flopping out to do its thing seemed funny when imaging just a whole limb doing it instead of a gun or reconstituted system. In Wiz's death picture, I tried to include every weapon listed as an example of what's in his metal arm!

 

Captain You: Poor You. On one hand, I was pushing for her to enter in a previous Brawl and maybe would have supported her there, but I did give her some support by way of my Sponsorship. I think maybe if there was another boat user or some such she could have had a more dynamic battle before going out, not to say her against Ladislaus or Renko wasn't lacking. That skirmish in particular is pretty vivid in my mind still as I write now in August, possibly because it was so early but also because I think I had a pretty strong vision for the course of events. I had expected a bigger boat from her entry but it might have been better we got the small one for the shape her fites took. O'Malley persisting so long after her death was partly to justify Ladislaus later having the train car, partly for a moment in the finale, but mostly because Gooper put him in Brawl title card and I took that as a challenge. There wasn't a reason to destroy him earlier, Ladislaus eating him while being sentient seemed like a bridge Sheep might not want me crossing so I spared him there, but it also gave a bit more options later. I have mentioned elsewhere O'Malley was originally going to be goaded by Iono's chat as her streaming kit was going to be part of Big Buddy and they'd sort of help with taking him down during his late game power trip. I did worry leaving O'Malley ineffective for so long would make his reappearance odd, but I had a similar worry about Tricky's device but didn't want to bring it up and make people perhaps overly anticipate their relevance. I do wish I had maybe given O'Malley's betrayal near the end more time to breathe, but also, you don't want to bog down the finale or else people might peek ahead as they get anxious to see the results! It is a shame You's section would end up dominated by talk of someone besides her though; I do worry I should have emphasized that mean wound she gave Ladislaus more across the Brawl, but May avenging her and having that motivation for so much of the Brawl also at least means she wasn't forgotten.

 

 Milk: Sometimes a sniper character introduces a rough wrinkle as you don't want them to be inaccurate but they will be trying to kill most the Brawl. Milk though feels perfectly designed to get around this worry since she likes to get in your face and has an attitude that encourages some plausible time not spent just at a perch trying to shoot someone. Placing pretty low also means there wasn't a need to worry about what she was up to for too long, she could just participate from the start and then bow out. Being up against people like Neo who could trick her though also helped with some of that plausibility issue, she shot people but they weren't always legitimate targets. Having a sniper in an alliance though felt pretty smart, that also gives you some room to get aggressive with a sniper without invalidating them since a buddy can swing in and protect them for a bit! I wouldn't be surprised if we see the Nikkes again down the line, and maybe Milk can do a bit better, but her parts here were pretty easy to come up with. I guess the same thing would apply that does to Sugar though, I'd probably want some more details on how much of these ladies is metal or flesh so I can better give them wounds! Milk likes to fist fight, but how dangerous are those fists? Where can she be punched? Where can she be cut to bleed, and what kind of injuries wouldn't bother her because of her robotic parts? Ivel did mention how Nikkes usually were in their source material, but "usually" is a big word, and plus, he should have the saw on how these ladies are here in RP, so ivel, when they come around again, give me them deets!

 

The Snatcher: I really expected Snatcher to go so much further! Before the results I already had the pre-fite deal planned, the betrayal during the Brawl, I was ready to really sit on it for a while! I had originally considered it more like Snatcher would goad someone into shooting him and he'd weave around to avoid it, his ally being behind him and getting constantly shot up because of the tricky dodging. One reason I didn't do this was to show Beck wasn't dumb and also so it was a bit more active of a betrayal with that deflect. Snatcher getting outsmarted was really meant to be his reason for wanting to turn against his allies. In his entry there is a mention of a shadow dimension and he does pull some brawlers into it, but I decided to write it a bit like a dome of shadow swallowed them up. It may have stuck around, it may have been elsewhere, I didn't want to overcommit and when they did exit it they were right back to avoid any dimensional worries. I actually didn't explicitly state the dimension timers Cornwind used for Dawn and I might have been more lenient, but they did make me consider how I should approach portraying the Snatcher's little pocket dimension. Snatcher working with Esme was again part of people working with their counters instead of against them, but again, I wish Snatcher got deeper so I could milk his abilities some more and make him a real fearsome member of Team Business. I didn't touch on his potion throwing much because we had the explicit counter and I liked things like Dollar dipping his gun in blue paint over the video game boss style counter that would always be there if I was in a pinch for making him vulnerable. I did consider a bit more stuff involving Dollar's soul being harmed but I worried about that maybe looking Dollar look foolish for taking the contract or maybe just make it hard to believe he could keep going. I think Snatcher's bag of tricks like the shadow minions would have got a lot more play or helped him buy time during brief alliance check-ins, but he's no Conductor sadly, so we didn't get much time to play with him. I still think he made enough of an impression considering everything though, and that's what you hope for from a low placing entrant!

ENDING

Well, putting things in that order didn't pay off! I trust in your ability to Ctrl+F though, it shouldn't be too hard to find your entries if you're eager to read on them first. I do think in some ways it helped to bounce around and do whoever and whatever rather than trying to complete them in batches. I know I say that while being quite late in posting this, but hey! It's a mindset thing! The character section alone is like 30,000 words so cut me some slack! Really though, sorry for another long wait for this, but I don't want to put aside RP or just no-life it like I do the Brawl.

It was a fun and pretty smooth year!  Far as I saw no controversies or major issues or anything and I did most of the things I wanted to. A reminder, the character sections sound like I'm pretty nervous because I'm telling you things that were cut or considered. If it was awesome I just put it in usually! If your character's section is shorter too they might just have gotten in most of the things I conceived of for them, I didn't want to prattle on too much with things I only thought of as writing this rather than what I thought in the midst of working on things.

I already know what I how I want the Brawl to be next year, and while I said once before I had considered the idea of a Brawl being hosted by someone else's character and I won't do it, I did keep thinking Laila would be a good fit for what's coming. After all, I was asked for Whalestrand whether we'd do icy port town or spooky setting for the Brawl arena this year...

Once again though, thank you for joining me for this again! I'm glad I got some decent bets in this time around, Horatio is very happy with an unexpected win! I hope I didn't forget too much, but I feel if I did, I mentioned it in chatzy already! And yeah, that's the sticky notes there, I even made sure to go and download the classic version of the notes app compared to the lame new Windows 10 one because the new one has a bunch of annoying loading issues and less features! I'd share the post titles but they were all pretty boring this year except for having two titles that apologize to Sey and Cornwind since their character deaths grouped up so much.

Now then, toodaloo to you!