I don't know exactly why, just a sort of mood overcame me when plotting out the Brawl this year. When I made my usual list of 72 names and started drawing lines to indicate who would kill who, it just felt like some things weren't coming together. I think I only assigned like half of the kills before I realized something just wasn't clicking, and I wanted to dive into doing the Pre-Fite instead. It technically meant work was getting done ahead of schedule but also behind! In that sticky note on the right you see, the one where I indicate what each of the brawl posts will be, for a while that just said things like BLANK kills Character KO and I intended to figure out later who the blank would be. This might have actually been good for the Brawl health in the end, I guess I didn't commit too strongly to certain ideas and was more willing to move them around the Brawl flow. I think that's one reason assistants and teammates got more time and weren't often killed one after the other compared to some years. Since it was moving the death around and then figuring out the killer, it meant we could have things like Reduin dying so early compared to Democurus since I thought of its post placement before the involved characters.
This Brawl did take longer to write than most even though it's smaller than some, but that's also because I paced myself differently. I wrote 4 posts a day most of the time, but again, I didn't sweep away assistants or lock myself into saying posts needed a certain amount of KOs that locked in places in the standings. I'll probably try to do something like this again next year since I think it worked out quite well in terms of work-life balance and giving things room to breathe.
Mallory as the Brawl host has been the plan for a while now, although there was a brief period I had considered him as an entrant before hand. By the time the year started I'd say it was pretty locked in. For quite a while, the Brawl arena was very uncertain, but eventually I hit on the idea of Argo Deconstructed to try and give the arena some variety. Ultimately, the watery and steamworks areas of the Brawl Mountain arena played very minor roles, but early on the arena concept would be that in the center would be a large observation tower that Mallory and other audience members could be seated in. Beneath the tower was outback, then surrounding that ring of outback would be an area with water/steam, a steamworks city, and a rocky area meant to represent the mountainous parts of Argo. Funnily enough, after Brawl Mountain's destruction and rocks and earth littered the arena in great numbers, that was kind of what I imagined the eventually scrapped craggy area to be like. Naturally, the observation tower (sort of like the Space Needle in design) was meant to be knocked down at some point, likely as part of an attack from a less scrupulous brawler looking to get an edge.
I'm not too sure how I feel about Brawl Mountain itself after writing it, and I think the main thing is the mountain itself. Like, I pretty much did most of the things you would expect from fiting on a mountain: someone clinging to the side trying to stay down, falling down it, a rockfall, crashing down into a cave, coming out of a cave. Funnily enough, I didn't do a single fall death related to the mountain, but I do recall in early ideas that Perona would KO Mabel by throwing her off of it. I think one thing about a mountain is it mostly just grants some elevation and a nearby rock wall, and at first I was pretty nervous about overuse of the tunnels because I didn't want to copy Secret Fiter Scuffle II too much. The water feature didn't see much use but that's also because the feature is always there in case its needed rather than forcing its way into things. Like, if Nemu came back and there was no water, it would suck to be her! Better safe than sorry! The steamworks area coming back near the Brawl's end was a multi-faceted choice planned a good degree in advance. For one, it would shift up the setting (although I hadn't intended to spend THAT much time away from it), for two, I had already decided on the maid/Cafe Sweety rivalry kicking off near the Brawl and Breakfast (which I figured was most believable to build in that area), and for three, it just felt more likely to have stuff standing for a fite with a bit more room for Layla to be tricky.
I don't think Brawl Mountain is a failure by any means, we've fought in stretches of dirt and had amazing battles in other brawls, but I think it might be a bit of a come down from last year's very involved arena design that maybe made it feel a little lacking. I was a bit nervous having Sivvy pull the whole mountain down, again believability almost making me reject a cool flashy idea.
Looping back a bit, for entrants and voting I did consider a Mallory-appropriate idea I think was called something like the Vote Pool. There was the beginnings of an idea where there would be a big pool of 250 points or some other impressive number, and everyone got to add a character name to the Vote Pool. Then, a somewhat random amount of the points would be distributed, with a roll for each entrant. So like, someone might get 50 points, but then another character only got 3. I don't know how I'd do the math to make sure it wasn't wildly large or that the votes didn't deplete before everyone was rolled, but I think scrapping it for the crowd pleaser was the better idea instead. I was feeling that lack of votes squeeze and thinking like others did that more than one gift vote would be nice, but at that point I figured why not double both special votes so it didn't feel weirder we only just got gift vote doubled up. It also helped stave off the ballooning vote counts a bit. We are at 14 regular and I feel like 15 might be the max for standard votes, but we put that off another year with this little treat! Now how will I convince everyone it's fine to go back to just one gift vote...
Mallory was never intended to intervene in the Brawl really, but Rutherford was considered for it! I had thought of the idea of him even killing Goblin Ref (likely after Goblin Ref directly instigated it, attacking Rutherford in some form), but I do remember Draco's irritation at Knucklotec's joining in and generally it's better to have an entrant earn the KO so Gwenpool got it instead. Instead, I just made Rutherford a little petty so there was at least some joke between the official and unofficial ref. I did wonder if I had heard of Spy's idea beforehand if I would have made Goblin Ref the ref... but I don't know how that would work out considering he'd be fiting and dying.
Steam didn't play too much of a role in the Brawl, although I did consider having pipes go through Brawl Mountain to provide it. I almost feel like maybe the next year arena could use them better but it didn't feel too natural to rope them in, which made Garie's worry about Steam not a big deal. I considered her in pre-fite getting a bit of a hang on it but ultimately she was in that writing spot where it worked when it was more fun to but came up short when it was supposed to be bad for her (most obvious when comparing her trying to control paint vs. syrup). I did make sure to mention the Brawl Book in the Brawl post itself since it feels like it should be hard canon that entrants don't walk away empty handed, makes this thing make a touch more sense in universe.
Lorne taking over the role as the guy who replaces a Secret Fiter if its revealed early was a more recent idea. I didn't like the joke I made about The Dud from The Simpsons being it after a while, mainly that he sure embodied the disappointment you should feel if you spill the secret, but it's also a bit straightforward and he looks like a kid. Lorne was someone I had considered for RP as a character who would be a Kobber superfan and if he did get in the Brawl he'd probably be annoying just talking away about things he notices or thinks about the entrants, but I think what really sold him as the replacement for Snivel was that he had the catchy jingle! Snivel having the snivel verb for jokes really made him feel bigger than previous threats like Scooby Dum, and Lorne being the Friend for Life makes him memorable while not just copying Snivel's idea.
PRE-FITE
That might be it for general Brawl thoughts, so, let's move onto Pre-Fite! As entrants rolled in, I started to dynamically shift what I had expected to do with Pre-Fite. As Gwenpool even alludes to, initially I had just a very basic idea of like, Rutherford sneaking around to get the footage, since he was good at being unassuming and could disappear in a steam cloud. However, we had entrants like Jackson and Troy that got my mind turning on what maybe they could do, but Gwenpool felt like where it truly clicked. I'm a touch iffy on how much to lean into fourth-wall leaning, I think when it's done poorly it can be extremely obnoxious, especially in a setting that is trying to be genuine! You'll notice in the Pre-Fite that Gwenpool even tries to steep her awareness into something that someone in ZFRPverse could believe despite that not being truly what she's doing. I did think her being host would be great for going through a lot of that metatextual awareness in an acceptable format though. Pre-Fite already kind of requires perspectives and knowledge that would be hard to gather, and her being in charge also gave carte blanche for basically doing whatever perspectives I wanted. I did wonder if I should do more interruptions, but I think the ones we had like Jimbo did a decent job shaking things up.
Writing Gwenpool hosting was of course quite fun and I tried to give her more to work with than just fourth wall breaking. She also kind of spilled the beans on a lot of thoughts I had! Like, she references doing the Brawl arena check-in first and I almost did that before deciding against it, so, she mentions it. At one point, I did consider a joke that Gwenpool would realize she had been hosting with Kyouko and completely forgot it, but it didn't feel like it worked, especially with the idea that we somehow didn't view it despite her powers not working on video taped things. I knew I wanted to write a Bluster Kong song about his new plight though, and when I realized him singing it could lead to Kyouko sympathizing with him, that locked in Leo Luster for this Brawl after he missed out on the tranformation last time. Of course, I say "locked in" when some things could have been scrapped if certain entrants did too badly. While Cornwind characters training or considering strategy is a common Pre-Fite trope, I actually did like that it let me put forth my favored ethos on what makes a true Brawl champion: adaptability. It may not have got Victoria the win for realizing it, but rolling with the punches, making good of what's around you, making alliances, avoiding enemies, that feels like it is what gets brawlers to the top over pure might or power. I won't drill in this idea too much, but I think it helps contextualize our champions a bit better than just whoever got lucky.
One joke I removed from the Pre-Fite Show involved a reference to the brief typo in Paimon's entry that said she was 100 feet long or something to that effect. It made for a quick joke, Gwenpool asking how anyone could fit in a room with her considering that before realizing that Troy and the others wouldn't have remember before the edit, but it was a long stretch for little pay off. I did consider a stronger interaction between Stella and Kay in pre-fite to foreshadow their battle; even though Gwenpool mentions the idea of red herrings I don't think I really did any this year. Some things were small in terms of payoff, but Gwenpool starting to feel the weight of expectations was meant to at least connect to her being the furthest in the Brawl of the Secret Fiter Alliance after its big push. Even though Bree isn't around anymore, her saying alliances had too many names did mean I kept it relatively tame on giving them additional monikers. The big ones that dominated the clusterfite got names, and funnily enough, the clusterfite name was just me trying to avoid the word clusterfuck despite it feeling so appropriate. I didn't want to swear! But it also sounded less chaotic as clusterfite, but the alliances being so at each other's throat was meant to help differentiate it from other brawls.
Funnily enough, I think division of alliances, teams, and such was a big theme of Brawls despite the clusterfite. Similarly, size changes were given a big emphasis, and I think both were just cases of an idea working well in my head and getting pushed again and again. Like, alliance fites can be fun as everyone gets in their hits, although as Naomi learned, sometimes it's too much to keep track of! However, cordoning them off briefly with things like the rockfall lets us laser in on a small grouping rather than having to include every fiter in every exchange. Size changes though... that was just fun! Moment I saw Titan Dweevil's tool I knew I wanted Mega Sivvy, but then it was also good for Allison when the angle of her as Ruukoto's revived helper came around.
Maple and Hannah teaming up was kind of me throwing my hands up after not being sure how they'd ally elsewhere. Locking Hannah into DALI's group felt a little selfish, I was already bringing in Lee and Jackson who maybe could have allied elsewhere. I knew big expectations would be on the pair, heck, I expected either of them as some of the most likely winners! But ultimately putting them together felt like a good compromise without them having to necessarily refuse or be mean to others in a way that might not feel appropriate. It's good both wanted to prove themselves in the Brawl against friends and such. The Brawl is technically people who otherwise like each other for the most part fiting after all, so it's not really a betrayal so much as doing as expected!
Little things you might not notice: Mabel being interested in Rainbow's psychic tools was meant to set up why she collected the tarot cards after Rainbow's death. Anansi's blood pact was mostly a sign of loyalty, but both Anansi and Naomi deliberately used stronger fire thanks to Haymar (although I second-guessed having Haymar or Anansi use like, food magic. Just didn't feel right.) Semen Strychni was mostly just a pre-fite joke rather than set-up, it more important for Maomao to mention other things and set up that she'd be digging around early in the brawl for materials that were set up as likely to be there. Momoyo's mention of Xenotime was not even for her own sake! I almost made the Baffler word search as an image but ran short on time, it felt like the joke worked even in narration though.
MYSTERY AND SECRET
So, for quite a while I wasn't exactly sure who I wanted to be the Mystery Fiter, and there was actually a bit of a placeholder idea. Mainly because I learned of that character's powers and thought they'd be fun to actually realize to their full potential. I am not going to mention them here, they may even be next year's Mystery Fiter since I do think they have some value, although I feel like I often say in such blogs that I'm holding onto an idea only for it to never come to fruition. The call of the new is strong...
Anyway, I can't exactly recall when Bobobo became the new Mystery Fiter, but it was fairly close to Brawl time, maybe a month or so off. I think it might actually tie to a recently released manga called Nice Prison, which uses Bobobo's off the wall humor to a lesser degree but definitely gave me the vibes as I added it to my reading list through the shonen jump app. I've wanted to do an anime sourced Mystery Fiter for a while, keep the variety in source material always shifting for this role, but I felt like a lot of choices felt hollow. Like, picking a main character who is recognizable might just feel like it could evoke mixed emotions depending on the source material, especially if they're incredibly powerful. Picking a side character could maybe skirt that issue but then it expects some familiarity with the franchise, like I think a few people in RP would recognize a JoJo but it could also feel like me picking a character for the JoJo fans to the exclusion of others.
Bobobo is a wonderful fit though. He doesn't fit into the anime power scaling kind of stuff since he was from a gag manga and his strength is usually "as high as the joke needs". Other than prehensile nose hairs, his powers aren't just a bunch of big beams or anything that feels too much like power for power's sake. He's here to be wacky and weird rather than a heavy hitter, hence how he was written in the Brawl itself. He rarely even goes for a straight-up attack, but that's because of his focus on "wigging out". I never did watch all of Bobobo, despite my love for surreal, dadaist, absurdist things, it actually can be quite a lot to sit down a bunch of Bobobo episodes in a row! As a result, I don't remember how much "wigging out" is codified into the show or if it's more a fan term for the weirdness that happens. It has been described as Bobobo essentially driving the foe insane while remaining utterly unpredictable, but I also feel like it's not entirely in his control because of how often it backfires on him through no fault of others. It's a skit where playing along or resisting it can have different outcomes based on how well you handle it, and if you watch Bobobo fites, you'll see characters like Torpedo Girl handle Bobobo much better because she can be just as strange, hence why Bobobo was ultimately done in in the Brawl not by resisting his bit, but by turning the narrative of his jokes against him.
I still had him countered in different ways of course, we had Neokama trying to block the set-ups, and while I wouldn't call Bobobo necessarily reliant on chaos energy, I felt Momoyo smacking down his attempts to kick off a joke was still a fun idea. There's definitely a certain flow to a Bobobo joke you'll find in the show, wordplay often a set up to a shift in the scene's premise or serve as set up to a proper attack, something I think was best embodied in the Brawl when Bobobo created a whole wedding scene so he can make a cold feet joke and kick Francine. When he said he needed something to beat Momoyo with, well, beets are vegetables, so he goes to try and grab some, getting to the weird subversion of them being too small that could have transitioned into more jokes if not for interruption. It's actually kind of a banter, which is usually why Bobobo's got someone like Don Patch or Jelly Jiggler to contribute. I definitely felt a bit of the absence of such an accommodating character in writing some Bobobo and I didn't want him to always dominate the moment he was in, and I shut things down at times to avoid being too indulgent. The Brawl has 72 entrants and it can't just become the Bobobo show!
I did almost consider having Gooper draw at least wedding dress Mabel, I feel like in some older Brawl the whole wedding scene could have gotten a drawing for its absurdity a la the hunky Coneheads from BBB3. Kay was used as a bit of a surrogate Beauty, that being the character in Bobobo who often points out the absurdity of his actions or contributes some one-liner as a reaction, Nice Prison unsurprisingly having its own equivalent to her too. Didn't stick with it long though, but the set-up for Bobobo's reveal was one of the first things I planned for the Brawl. I actually thought the Mystery Fiter fakeout with it being a brawler who already entered would instead be applied to Liz if Cornwind had entered him, and Bobobo and Liz would have probably a headache inducing early fite to build on that. Baffler was a good replacement since it really was meant to be a bit baffling when the narration then has Bobobo speaking as if he was already a known quantity after the image. I've done a few mystery fiter fake-outs before so I wanted this to be a bit different, it's not like the Predator where we only learn his identity later, instead we're just getting a sampler of what makes Bobobo unique. I did avoid using Bobobo's full name mostly because I already expected a lot of the reader to keep up with his silliness, there would be people who didn't recognize him and it felt best to treat him even within the story as something people struggled to understand, hence Neokama's Mabel, a fairly normal lady, often expressing some confusion as a bit of an in-universe surrogate. I am very happy with what I wrote for him and think he was around just enough for the fun he could bring, I actually had his KO be on Francine though specifically because I worried some people might take a goofy death by way of his wigging out poorly but knew Chao would jive with Bobobo.
As for Spider-Gwen, of course both me and Draco were immediately amused when the roll came in and now we'd have two Gwens from Marvel Comics in the Brawl. I did consider a joke in the pre-fite or brawl itself that would imply Gwenpool tipped the secret fiter roll in Spider-Gwen's favor, but I thought it was best not to even joke about such a thing. It was fun to be able to have a secret fiter reveal with a built in joke though. Yeah, the Brawl has a lot of comedy, I reflected on that a bit this year, but I think if it was all violence it would be sort of dour, wouldn't it? We need the levity or else this really is just a bloodbath! I do kind of wish this had also been the year CKR entered Spider-Ham though, I feel like that would have been good for him as well since his time in the Brawl was minor but he could have built on this little connection some.
I do wish the Secret Fiter had done better in a year with such a strong emphasis on Secret Fiters. I will go into more details about things like the ones Snivel called with his whistle in his section (my cruel way of getting you to read his spot in the character section!) but I think after last year's excellent Secret Fiter Scuffle and a few other connecting threads, it felt so natural to build it into an alliance this year. I do kind of wish I could have somehow had Spider-Gwen join in the Pre-Fite, have more room to build her up and explore her personality before she was thrown right into the action. I did try to emphasize her ballet movement since it was explicitly brought attention to in the Secret Fiter PM Draco sent, but otherwise she is kind of Spider-Man and I definitely wrote some of her tricks based on specific visual memories I have of him. Like, her moving through the pipes I think might have come from a Miles Morales moment actually, but I know her webbing up the Diffractor and throwing it away was based on the attack from the Spider-Man PS4 game. I don't think Brawl Mountain was exactly conducive to web swinging, so instead it was a lot more trying to figure out ways to use combat webbing. I did initially mark her down as killing Yuran because I had imagined it more as a fite in the tunnels where she could do more wall-crawling and web-swinging shenanigans, and one reason she ended up going down to Mikey was because I felt his agile fiting style and his chain kind of put him on the same level as her. Amusingly, while I did come up with the in-universe explanation for the two explicitly heroic types to clash being Mikey aiding the Baffler, that was more something I realized myself later would work rather than it being an intentional way to set things up. As always though, most Brawlers are hero, so you can't have all the heroes ignoring each other!
CHARACTER THOUGHTS
Without further ado though, I figure it's time to start diving in and doing my usual behind the scenes thoughts on all the brawlers! We've got two down, but still 70 to go! I'm thinking I'll do it in reverse placement order, starting with the top and going down. Which means...
RUUKOTO: The champion! I don't think I've seen a Brawl tractor result that made me laugh as much as this one. Mainly, because Chao was worried her second run was going to be her flaming out like last time, so to see the tractor swing so hard in the opposite direction was too funny. Generally though, this Brawl was very kind to veterans and I think having Ruukoto win like this is a nice reminder. The Brawl results aren't going to always lean towards the top vote getters because there's always a chance for a win like this. It is nice to have some control over fate, but Ruukoto really sort of embodies the idea of anyone being able to get the win and gives some hope to people who might see their character flagging in the voting period. There's always a chance, no matter how small! One thing I was worried about with Ruukoto was her getting the upgrade to attach Snake to her being a bit too big a flag of her coming success, although it's not like a mid-brawl upgrade always leads to a win. Ashley didn't even have one in a Brawl that also had Red Lantern Natasha and of course Little Buddy's own big upgrade, and we also had things like Giant Sivvy and Kyouko getting her new powerful allies that kept things unclear on who would go far. Bob Bifford is another good example of a champion who didn't need a big upgrade, but I also think generally with the power level of some finales it's a lot clearer why some characters need to get a power push. With all the brineladies to face near the end, Ruukoto's standard kit would feel a little small! Still though, even after getting Snake attached, I made a concerted effort not to lose track of the abilities she brought in with her, didn't want it to be Snake with a maid attached essentially winning the fite.
Funnily enough, I was worried for a while Ruukoto wasn't doing enough on her path to being champion and that it might feel like it comes out of the blue! She does start getting more active later on, but the ongoing rivalry with Cafe Sweety also gave her some moments before she started getting the bigger push. I also didn't want Allison to be too much of a scene stealer, trying to keep her to support so again, people wouldn't look at Ruukoto and think she got carried to the end. That's one reason Pre-Fite had her learn conventional robotic repair and stuff, she likely was just as much responsible for her upgrades as Allison, we just didn't see her using the wrenches and hammers on screen compared to Allison whose main support role was to propose the upgrades. For the final kill, I was a bit worried for a bit that I'd learn that maybe the plutonium battery was meant to be irreparably attached to the AI Core and hunted down details to try and make sure that wasn't the case. Giving her Borea's fan was like, purely to sidestep that at first, but it also made for a good late-brawl tool. I considered giving her even more upgrades, I know I had considered some form of fight like Vimmy's stuff perhaps, but I think it also gave Layla a good advantage in the final fite and I also worried too many new tools would make it obvious she was going to at least make final two. I was a touch nervous about Borea's fan not being a believable means of her retaining power after the battery's removal, but as the narration even points out, Borea ran on it just fine and she's a powerful robot!
I think one reason limb removals and the like often aren't part of new Brawls as much as old save when they pre-empt a coming death ties to the space needed for every character. Like, when there's 72 brawlers, it's not as easy to have characters stay in the game after losing legs. Ruukoto though allowed me to return to my old ways, and it was fun to write her becoming basically a barely functional piece of scrap. I really didn't want Layla losing to such a wrecked Ruukoto feel unfair, hence why it fell to a gamble with the battery explosion. Like, it wasn't some lucky shot with a weapon, and I did want to use that self-destruct function and Ruukoto had done too well for it otherwise! One thing I wasn't too sure of was emphasizing Ruukoto's android intelligence, like, she was quite reactive such as when she avoids the lethal snipe. I tried to keep it in check, like she moved a smidge rather than being an incredible agile dodger or whatever. One thing that did get a bit lost in the shuffle though was the catapult attached to Ruukoto's Snake body, although it was also mentioned that the bottles meant for it were taken so it just came down to not having a good reason for the catapult to come up after that sabotage. Her epilogue I wasn't too sure of for a while, I liked the idea of us seeing her immediately back to maid duties as a sort of joke like "really, she just went back to normal?" but the follow-up from there I thought I'd just do something indulgent. At times I almost thought of her as too robotic so I kept reminding myself Ruukoto's actually pretty chipper, and with Allison also rather playful, I thought the ending being them sneaking off with their Brawl upgrades for some R&R was cute, even if I had to admit that there was no way they were going to stay giant sized and Snake bodied beyond just making that epilogue a good way to show off their "Brawl winning forms".
LAYLA PRISMRIVER: When it came to writing the memory/echo powers of Layla, I had a pretty hard rule. It had to be something she could have believably witnessed during the Brawl, although I think I did stretch that maybe once when I had her do some Castti healing when I couldn't exactly point at how she could witness that. In one way, the clusterfite was a boon to her there, but I really wanted to make it clear she wasn't just bringing the whole Brawl to bear, she was calling on specific battle moments that she witnessed. Her entry does specify calling on parts or weapons specifically and I considered mentioning as much, but at the same time the narration was much clearer by just saying so-and-so appears to do this attack rather than getting bogged down in details. I did wonder if I should try and pull in memories from her plot last year, I think if she had been the winner, part of her final push would have been the characters she mentioned helping her realize herself all called on for a big attack before the sisters all appear for the final clincher. For this Brawl's sake, I stuck to the already hefty material on hand as well as having her be able to call her sisters for moments of import like the finale push or when she was appealing to Obda. Obda being around to help Layla was of course building on Lyrica and Pitohui's love for birds and all, but it did also help me fill in what could have been a gap in Layla's flexibility. When she starts calling on more memories to aid her, she needs to focus more and stay still. Obda being a mobile mount that can get her away from trouble meant she could stay out of reach while calling on bigger attacks believably.
I did wonder too if Layla was too much in the background at first for her future importance in the Brawl, although it was more like "maybe I should make her more prominent so people think she's got the win coming because of that meta-narrative knowledge". I try to swerve and subvert so often it starts doubling over on itself! I was unsure how much damage the conductor's baton could sustain without killing Layla (and briefly forgot Layla does not have a ghostly tail, I blame the physical resemblance to Mima!) but I do know I very early wanted her in the finale to be holding that baton in her mouth as she got worn down much like her opponent. I did consider trying to look up Layla's danmaku which is a problem when she's not a main touhou like most girls from that series, I didn't want to completely forget that side of her powerset. One thing I wish I had found a use for was her ability to unravel memories; maybe she could have unraveled the blood phantoms from Chiyari? Those two facing off could have been fun but also avoiding each other was perhaps for the best with the power similarity. On one hand you want to see that conflict, but it also means two things of equal make clashing compared to seeing powers that interact in novel ways having neat showdowns and counters in play. If only Sheep entered Piano this year...
LEE/JACKSON: Funnily enough, I think if anyone can be "blamed" for the clusterfite and constant alliance conflicts, it's Lee! That anti-material rifle, being quick to fire and packing the kind of strength that could probably shred a regular human if it landed a hit, needed to find some place where it was believably being used but also not like, countered every time it was fired. So, we throw the alliances together, and then it's easy to assume that maybe Lee wasn't hitting smaller targets she could kill, but she was probably blasting holes in Anansi (who could heal it), doing damage to Sage (the mech had body to spare), or being more directly countered by proper defenses like Evolto using a black hole to destroy the shots. I didn't want to defang her entirely by acknowledging this would likely be the case and we didn't see her shots get constantly dodged to make her look less powerful either. I'm sure she fought with her other attack methods too during the clashes, especially since there would be speedier type who could close in and force her to use her enhanced limb strikes or wire hands. If she hadn't done so well, maybe we would have been able to see exactly what she was doing more often early on, but there's also something to be said about not depleting all the interesting attack options early. If a character keeps approaching fites with the same tricks, it can lose its punchiness, so you don't want to overexpose the character either. Third place is a more difficult balance to achieve though; sure, you want them to feel like a finalist until they go out, but they also don't necessarily need the bodycount the finalists require to make that final showdown quite as tense.
I guess I'll use Lee's section to discuss the break from tradition in having a Final Five post instead of Final Four, although I'm sure most people understood why. Three brinegals still standing, all three of which were about to fall. Hannah especially being at spot 5 made it a bit tougher to justify the usual splitting of the final few posts of the Brawl, although I did initially plan it to go to a final four like usual. I figured, essentially, it would be easier to stomach for brine if it was all grouped together instead of having Hannah die than wonder about those final two. The tractor being the decider in the order at least always means there will be an air of mystery no matter how I structure things, but with 3 of the 5 characters all being from one user, it also feels like we going in knowing at least one will fall before the finale rather than there being a possible hope of a fite yer' self finale to make the sting of the losses worse in the final four scenario.
Jackson, like her sister, was also incredibly powerful. Being able to Cut someone out of the Brawl is a very strong option, and again I'm sure during the clusterfite, she used a lot of her really powerful abilities but couldn't land a KO with them because of the targets. She definitely did damage though. Notably, Jackson's KO on 2B... I don't know if logically that's how her power should work. Like, the KO image shows 2B cut in a certain way, but I also wonder if Jackson Cut someone while they were held by the wires, surely it wouldn't break the wires, but also, maybe it would only remove some of 2B's body because she's an android? I'm sure there's a way to make it logically work, although the KO image shows a bit of 2B's head caught in the Cut in case we do need the clear "robot's brain was broken beyond use" confirmation for the elimination. I do wish I had used Jackson's powers more though, I wanted to do something bigger with Italics involving the mountain but it did feel like it would have been natural. I wanted to do something with the livestreaming but I feel like there weren't many other brawlers who would make use of it. Save As was part of the planned counter to Sage using her nanomachines but it also felt a little cheap to so easily undo it when it was meant to be a cool power that shifts the flow of a fite. Resize might have got more use if everyone wasn't already shifting sizes so much. I considered Strikethrough and I like the contract nature of it, but I feel kind of like it's more a power for Jackson operating independently while here she was very much a support to Lee. I did wonder about actually KOing Jackson the way I did, I mention she puts herself into the code to have better control and maybe again we can say that Jackson wasn't deleted so much as sequestered or all access cut or something. Lee was noted as being unhackable in her entry, but also, Sage is a powerful AI that can maybe hack the unhackable. Some things are impossible until they aren't! Lee also has a note about killing electronic intelligences, which also feels like it's the kind of thing where you can't just use it on another entry but I wish retrospectively I had said she wiped out a bunch of the nanomachines that way.
VIMMY/VENNY: I'm sure the obvious question when a team has a member die early is always going to be why that character and why that time. Momoyo killing a dragon was the obvious inspiration for her taking out one of the dragon twins, especially since the giant centipede form made it quite believably she could overcome the power differential, but why Venny? Well, I feel like it's a little self-evident. Vimmy being the more excitable, reactive, and not as in-control of the two makes her a stronger fit for combat writing. She can make more believable errors and do more emotional strategies. Venny isn't without her advantages, she's the stronger one, and seeing her break her better handle of her emotions when Vimmy perishes could have been a nice angle too, but I think their placement at fourth also meant it felt better to keep Vimmy in play longer. Venny maybe could have rode that fury as motivation for a good push, but it would have lost steam before her number came up. Vimmy, even after the passing of her sister, could lean more on being an excitable dangerous dragon cyborg!
The girls did kind of hit on the brinegirl good-to-have issue of too many tools, not enough room. Like I kept considering having them do their stealth camo trick, and I think in a Brawl where there were more flyers we could have really seen them coordinate some aerial maneuvers. I really was unsure how to draw the weredragon form Vimmy takes on and kind of wish I had used it more, but it's also such a boost that it would have trivialized a late game encounter like her fite with Perona. I damaged her feet too and wondered if she could even conceivably use it after that point, since its hard to be quadrupedal when down two legs! Perhaps amusingly, I did sometimes hitch a little when writing the claws of the girls because they did have minor differences in details, as if that would matter at all. The whole "they're capable warriors" stamp I apply to characters means these girls shouldn't be an inch short with an attack option they've used many times before. I did have Momoyo spit out Venny mostly to soften the death, tying it to the "imitation dragon" joke mostly to explain it more than Momoyo just being nice. Vimmy was going to be pissed after of course, but not devastated and furious like she would have been if Venny had been truly eaten. I did worry a bit about Wreath of Fangs's activation conditions, its one of those things where the description works perfectly fine then in the heat of the moment you see the small gaps. People will always tell me to ask about it, but I don't see these issues until I'm in the middle of writing! I even make my sticky notes during voting instead of sign-ups partly so I'll more deeply considered each entries details a second time through, doesn't mean I see every little hitching point that could exist before then!
HANNAH: So happy she placed so highly, although I definitely would have been fine with the win! If not for obvious Jackson bias on my part, I would have definitely given her a high vote. She's definitely earned a high placement after her phenomenal run in RP, although as mentioned in Pre-Fite, it was such a good run I wasn't sure where to place her in terms of alliances. It felt right not to hook her down though, she's so flexible and all over in terms of what she'll do and help that locking her into something tight and unbending like DALI would almost feel like it betrayed her character. Her loose partnership with Maple instead gave them the room to split-up and mostly just fite alongside each other for fun rather than some ideological push for group success. Naturally, after all the working out, I wanted to have some moments where her muscle shine, although I did second guess using her workout "catchphrases" mostly because it felt a little gratuitous at the points I was tempted to slip it in. Instead, the main reason Sarai even became conscious again at the very end was for that moment to be about Hannah pushing hard in a moment of physical strength! I did sort of skip on mentioning certain details about that axe though, many of them were of course occurring like how the marks work, but unless it was relevant to how things were going, it felt slow to mention the precise details.
Of course, I had to do some crucible stuff, it's like her trademark, and it killing Piyori was out of an effort to make a crucible KO happen even if I think there could have been more impressive ways to do it. It would not look good on Hannah to like, overturn a crucible and slam it down on Piyori so she roasts in molten metal though, so cool KO concept gives way to the fact Hannah isn't that brutal. I certainly can't be disappointed with Hannah's spell list usage though! I hit every mark and some like the molten metal copies got more than one big moment. I do wish I had found a good moment for her to craft a machinery spell though, maybe if Ruukoto had been the one to face her in the end instead of Layla we could have had a drill tail spell, but that would also weaken the moment in the finale where Layla uses the drill memories to powerful effect. I guess logic and rule of cool also conflicted a bit. Like Hannah has the Liege Maximo cannons already and maybe I should have realized she could have copied parts of the Death Egg Robo or even Lee, but I kept thinking maybe they were too complicated for her technopathy and played it too safe.
PERONA/SESE: Whoops, how did these two do so well? Honestly, I do wonder if they had gone even further if Sese would have been the one to last, but Perona filled some useful spots like being willing to kill Kyouko (because she's my character and I can justify killing nice brawlers in-character!) and I wanted Maple to kill Sese even though the mental image I had of a Sese more like, caught in syrup and breaking apart as she struggles to free herself was not the form the KO took. I guess I was thinking more syrup all between the bones making it so she could barely move, but she's also not a full skeleton so it doesn't work as physically as it might with someone like say Wiggle. Sese was a good fit for being the one to freak out about Leo Luster though, I was willing to have her be goofy and say an ape is hot, although I did worry there might be a line to overstep. She isn't actually into gorillas, it was there for comedic effect! Sese's powers also are more limited than Perona's in potential, and I did want to have Perona fully embrace her emotion moving in the Brawl since it's so hard to work into RP fites normally. I did wonder about Sese's point of death potentially leaving her bones to mentally effect others, but I figured it would if I wanted it to and I didn't want it to! It's also meant to take hours before they emit the hate aura, so, no dice there. I think one reasons Sese feels less flexible in a fite is she has to stand still to do the arms through the ground trick. But also, I do recall scrapping an early idea where her ability to sense things beneath the ground would help her anticipate an ambush from Piper, but their paths weren't meant to cross. Similarly, it didn't feel like Sese using her bones as danmaku was really meant to be used very often, especially since they're not nearly as good or flexible as a touhou danmaku spray so she couldn't just use them as a quick tool in battle.
I did worry Perona's emotional manipulation of Bluster to become Leo Luster might cheapen the moment a tad, but I also feel like, he needed some outside influence to break that barrier for the first time. Maybe he could now, conceivably, do so again, but he needed some lingering issues cleared from his head to make some important realizations. I did wonder how, with Perona going so far, I would justify more kills for her, since she's really not built for dishing out KOs. I mentioned I considered the Mabel drop by way of ghostlings, but I was also very happy to have the Secret Fiter whistle provide us with a way to arm Perona near the end. It was her sort of late game upgrade to remain competitive as the power levels were starting to condense to high levels. I did worry about Perona looking like a heel, I enjoy writing her as imperfect and not always the best when it comes to maturity and doing the right thing, but I also want people to like her as much as I do! It is a bit of a character moment though for her to realize again she's being a bad face for DALI in some ways, still struggling with being in that top spot. Even the pre-fite kind of drilled into that with Layla clearly showing she was better at leading a group than her! I do think maybe if these girls belonged to another user they might have done more or really felt like they earned their way to sixth place, but Perona especially being a more passive battler meant maybe they feel like their placement is a bit shaky? Maybe that's just me unable to get some distance on viewing my own characters in the Brawl still.
DEMOCURUS/REDUIN: Look at that, a returning champion placing so high! Again, this was a Brawl very friendly to veterans. I did wonder for a bit if I should have the Grand Buffet reappear, although considering how high he placed it didn't feel inappropriate. I did wonder about making the Book of Pumpkin Land into a Foodon but wasn't sure that made sense. I did almost skip making new Foodons all together, but I thought of the ice cream one, learned that Choco Ice...
While there is a joke that Reduin should have brought a sword and I felt its absence writing him, I think it was better he didn't have one since it let it be more about Reduin improvising or interacting more with Demo. Like, the pumpkin parrying trick was something I wish I had done for longer, it's such a silly mental image. I did wonder if things like Mega Mango were on the table since they weren't in the entry form, and unlike some years I didn't feel like I needed to have him always scooping up new foods even if he did end up getting some very useful ones like the bit of Dark Crystal Pep Simian. Looping back to Grand Buffet, I quite enjoyed the idea of having a Brawl ending power being used for a longer period in regular fiting. I think also, after three brawls with him, it was good to have different angles to take as I was even like "yup, this is a good situation for UFdOugh again, and I'm going to have to keep fiting autocorrect trying to fix that word." It would be nice if every champion could have such a send-off even if we've come to explain their early losses in defense runs as being targeted hard for their status. Reduin's death being where it was in the Brawl makes me wonder why I did that, maybe a fakeout to make people think Demo's time was coming up? Might have also just been to give Dark Crystal something to do earlier, that feels more likely.
KYOUKO/GUARDENER: Coming off one early killed partner to another, I felt rather bid having Guardener go out so early. Her whole thing is guarding! But it was important for the Bluster Kong stuff going on to have something to spark it all, and EMMI Type-META needed a good kill before his end so she was tough stuff. I feel like Kyouko was another personality guided brawler like Demo. Like she did her forgetfulness tricks and fought with danmaku and all, although I felt like her bark was her best and most unique battle tool, hence why I leaned on it so much. But really, Kyouko's kindness was her big advantage, as she specifically started to make good use of characters and elements that could have easily been forgotten. Bluster's entry didn't even mention Leo Luster at all this time and Akhorne felt like he could have been the kind of element I use for a brief moment and then have it quickly killed. I actually blame Gooper's title card for making me give Akhorne such a big push, but Kyouko in particular befriending powerful allies, in essence, her late game power-up. I did worry a touch about Guardener straight up drilling into the warehouse in the pre-fite show, that was kind of an almost cartoony element and wasn't sure if it was something she'd do, but also I reckon Kyouko might have heard the sadness with her dog ears and urged Guardener into it.
I did kind of want to do more with Guardener's parts, one reason they got a small mention later even if that was also a smokescreen a bit so you didn't think about Ruukoto's chest fan's new power source too much until it became relevant. I can't say I would have done it had they done better considering the placement, it was just a case of needing to build up characters a certain way and not having someone go out without any kills. Guardener didn't do jack squat before then though, I can just see the room to grow. I do remember considering like, mop vs. broom with Kyouko and Ruukoto, probably before I knew the results, so it's likely best we didn't get it since that feels like more what would happen if they had both placed very low.
DARK CRYSTAL PEP SIMIAN/SARAI: I already mentioned that Sarai was only stirred back to life near the end to really give Hannah a moment, although I think having her in Pep Simian was also good for limiting him a touch. He's got some pretty high power levels if he's allowed to use his body whatever way he likes, and I even hesitated to use some like steam because it felt a bit too much. Like, he's surely exhausting some mass doing that trick but also how much? How miniscule does a piece have to be to stop being a sentient piece of him? He's described as a smart liquid, not something with nanites or whatever, so what exactly has to be done to separate a mind from the mass? I know the entry says some things on that matter but the brawl brings so many types of damage and extra variables I kept wondering about that. I ended up relying a lot on either incredible force or abnormal power when it came to wearing him down. Like the mountain or giant rocks on him could surely splatter something to great effect, but a simple weapon would probably just be a bit like slashing Jell-O with a knife. The kill on Reduin though, the methodology I knew I wanted to do right a way, it's such a unique way of killing someone. It was even the first piece of Brawl art I made this year! I think also I didn't want to forget the big ape element in favor of just smart water tricks.
Sarai saying she really didn't want to fite on her own did lead to her minimal use, although she did assist more directly in the battle with Demo. As mentioned elsewhere, Democurus eating a bit of DCPS and wretching it back up was a vomit reference, although I wasn't so worried about old wounds with Cornwind (especially since it wasn't even close to the old frog's use of it) but moreso just a general worry it might gross people out. Somehow, rather then describing vomit directly, I think that worry instead made me describe it with details that might have made it grosser... I think of Cornwind's roster, DCPS was the one I wished to see win the most, it feeling like it really represents Cornwind's efforts to get the win more than the others with ideas like legacy and trying to make up for the past.
GWENPOOL: Here be some of my usual umming and ahhing about how meta is too meta! I think usually if I was nervous about it this year, Gwenpool almost came out and said so herself, like when she said she'd cool it on fourth wall breaks for a bit after killing Golbin Ref. I know I wanted to do the spoiler shield but also not lean on it too long, hence why it was so brief. I also wanted it to be clear that you click to read it and then back to regular reading, which is a weird thing to say when we use spoiler tags in entry forms, but it's some sort of hang up I guess. Like I worry a spoiler tag can be skipped more easily, and putting crucial information behind it mid-brawl could lead to it being lost or overlooked. Funnily enough, I think I was glad for her personality to be so front and center despite it needing to carefully skirt not going too hard on meta awareness. Her attacking options are pretty simple, explosives, katanas, although I liked being able to just suddenly have her on a motorcycle when I wanted. She was supposed to spend more time with the Deathroller before I realized the mountain collapse would likely separate her. She was definitely the face of Team Secret more than anyone, partly because of high placement, partly pre-fite, but that's why in pre-fite she starts to have those thoughts about hopes placed on her, so later she could feel that when Snivel places the last of the team's hopes on her. I think one temptation with fourth wall breaking is it almost becoming precognition or seeing the future and I had to stop myself from doing that. She still has to see things coming, even if she can predict a trope... although the Brawl is full of deliberate subversions!
Naturally, her taking on Mikey was so the guy who killed Gwen is killed by Gwen. One thing I did wonder come art time, is does she wear her mask at all in RP? I really much prefer the maskless look for her. The artist behind her look as seen in her entry, Gurihiru, makes her look so lively, expressive, and cute, it feels wrong to see her in any other style and the mask covers up that great work! I even quite enjoyed drawing her face as well, I think she looked really fun in the art I did of her. I of course tried a bunch of different things with the art again this year, sometimes not drawing fingers, sometimes making eyes that didn't close. I think the eyes that don't close I really do enjoy using since it avoids the odd misshapen eyes that always plague me and the fingerless arms are probably just best for expediency, although I tell myself to simplify and my mind refuses to let me do so sometimes. I've drawn so many characters holding swords and still don't know how to draw it well... I did hear the drawing advice "a head is a circle with a jaw" and tried that a bit, but it probably works better with full pictures rather than the really tiny art I draw that often ends up seven to a sheet of paper.
CAFE SWEETY: Redemption. I am so very happy Milk was able to get this far. I have certainly not made my bias towards her a secret after two years of her doing poorly and wanting to see her come back from it. It was a nice little character narrative to latch onto here as well, and I feel like, even if I wasn't really into Milk after becoming a champion of her cause, it still feels like she would have been the one to go the distance. Frima, after coming off a Brawl where she was around a long time and did a lot, made sense as the first to fall, especially with her explicitly being the sleepy sniper. Milk having a mix of long range weaponry and short range spunk made her more flexible, although Sugar was also fairly active and capable, hence her being the middle one to go. This is a good example of another team that was very split in terms of who falls and I don't think that meant we missed out on team dynamics either which is one reason splitting up KOs can be a downside potentially. It was a bit fun trying to invent reasons for Milk to be a competitive fiter after she was on her own though. Like just sniping from afar didn't feel a good match for keeping her active, but that lead to her boarding the train and all.
Naturally, the rivalry between Cafe Sweety and the maids pretty much defined their run in the end. I don't think dying to the champ harms Milk's reputation at all, and she managed to keep up with her for quite a while if you think about it! It kept Ruukoto busy early on, it was fun to check in on them again without it feeling like it was constantly in the background, it makes me wish I could always have things laid out like this. Definitely went with Milk killing Patty because a sort of contrast between willing to do what it takes to win and not, plus, Patty's tricks don't work so well on an android! Another thing with repeat entries is being able to tap into something that doesn't feel like it should always come up, but can come up in interesting ways. The Nikkes having moments where they had that little crisis of believing in their humanity but seeing it fractured by their bodily damage wasn't a huge thing here, but it definitely mattered! Already mentioned I'm sad I didn't get to make them bicker over coffee at the Brawl and Breakfast, although I think that would have been a more comedic look at the place than what we got. Maybe if there could have been a pre-fite, but letting Hank build it in advance didn't feel right.
MAPLE: It was kind of hard to justify her being anything but a big maple syrup monster! It is just so flexible, although there were times she shifted away defensively. I did of course want to make her bigger but wasn't sure how to make it happen for quite a while, but Democurus provides value once again! I could have probably contrived something, like the train having a bunch, but I think it's more fun to make it feel natural. As was pointed out, Democurus did eventually turn on her despite a temporary alliance, but it was also definitely a skewed one in her favor and born of convenience so it didn't feel like he really was a traitor. Maple was getting dangerous... but more importantly, she looked delicious! I can totally see Demo sneaking a bite even from a stalwart ally, just not to the degree he did here. As for Maple herself, it could have been easy to think of her as just moving liquid, but I really felt like the stickiness of syrup sets it apart, hence why it came up so often. It stuck Sese to a rock, it kept the coffin shut, it's more than merely a malleable body! Since mass was more precious to her than say, a water person though, I also avoided some of the maneuvers that would lead to her losing it.
One thing in particular I leaned into was a sort of ego trip for Maple. Like, not so much she was getting meaner, but she felt more in control and powerful the bigger she got, hence why she started to be a little less careful or picked bigger fites. More biting off more than she can chew than being truly haughty or conceited. I already mentioned in Hannah's stuff that it felt hard to place her otherwise, a girl of many friendships but not the kind that define her necessarily, and I think one reason I stuck her with Hannah was I knew Maple's quest for size would kind of drift her away naturally. Maple's powers also make her not exactly a good companion in that you could get quite sticky trying to fite alongside her! ...Just realized she got 12th place and her default size is 12 feet! Speaking of, keeping size scale when specific is often a bit of a task, but I think also when she's all oozy she can say, project herself up by thinning her body some or otherwise fudge some additional height for an attack.
PATTY: Patty had a huge advantage over previous "pacifists" and non-killers, even more than someone like Virtual Boy. Patty was not only obviously bound to be part of an alliance, but it was an alliance with many people who would happily clinch the kill, and some who would not even hesitate. Sure, Beckett might, but then we have the dragon twins or Celeste and even Vesper before you start factoring in the extended members like Evolto. Of course, Patty making it the furthest of them kind of threw in a monkey wrench, but her KOs also sort of dried up or ended up being things like where she helped take out 2B but didn't really plan the kill, it just happened during her attack.
I really felt like I could have done more with Patty's sort of rubbery loose limbs power, but it also feels sort of conditional and situational. When she's in command of a situation, she doesn't need to noodle her arms around, and the brawl writing style also doesn't lean on a lot of unnecessary description of individual strikes. She of course found moments, although perhaps in a bit of a continuation of what Naotaka said during the dojo training, I specifically had her do that leg grab move that looks good in kung fu movies and stuff but would be pretty impractical in a real fite. I know there's fun in flashiness, but again, the Brawl is about people fiting at their peaks, they're not going to watch you latch on with your legs and work on leveraging your weight if they've got a perfectly good sword in hand to stab down! That's another thing though, finding the counters within an attack is one big part of the Brawl's flow, a back and forth. Patty got in her licks, but Milk being an android hard countered some of her numbing tricks and all. I did sort of wonder about that bladed whip sword of hers, like I disintegrated it but then wondered if that was the right idea, but the wire gloves were good even if that had overlap with Lee. If anything, that overlap was fun enough to inspire a KO, and since Patty fell in with her, we didn't get things too samey. I think the micro-rockets were my favorite part of the kit even if I felt almost like I had to describe their existence each time since they're a bit strange. It's a fun abnormal fiting tool that was good for counters or neat plans, especially when she started coordinating closely with Beckett for a while. One thing though about the Stream users this year is I sort of shied away from their usual blasts and all. Never just for the sake of it, if it felt right, it was done, but these people don't train their lives away just to pepper you with Stream! It's definitely more part of the kit than usual, closer to like, how Patty also had the explosives that she didn't use much but still threw in a bit when it felt fluid or the best call.
CASTTI: Team mom of the doctors and kinda the one guiding the other two on the leash. I was kind of surprised how many of her ingredients I managed to use in the end, although I don't think I quite plumbed the depths of creative mixtures or applications. Like her entry mentions using ice to help with treatment but I didn't quite explore ideas like that. I think maybe if I had played Octopath 2 I could have also thought of more mixes or even had a clearer idea of the exact types of magic at play. The funny thing is, I think I worried in general that all three doctors were a bit passive at times in a fite, partly because of their reliance on things that are used at range of essentially cast. Like needing to take time to make a potion feels a touch passive compared to constant involvement in the fite, but I also think one reason the alliance stuck together tighter than most was to help them all buy time for others. I wanted to get in a Drastic Measures use but couldn't quite find the moment. Part of it was of course a lot going on and the flow of the fites, Castti hitting most brawlers she faced with an axe was already severe without needing the ailment curing side effect. If she had faced maybe a giant foe it might have been more reasonable, but I saw no reason why her axe couldn't normally do things like split a raptor's head!
Castti is less extreme and quirky than Maomao and Chiyari, I kind of wish I had shown her more motherly side or had her look to expand the alliance. We got a bit of her thinking wisely when Leo Luster approached, willing to help him, and maybe if there had been a few more solo acts in this Brawl we could have seen the doctors joined by someone else. Definitely knew she had to get an axe KO no matter how tempting some magic one could have been, got to emphasize unique parts of a character, so the battle medic got to show off her signature weapon!
CHIYARI: The tractor putting her next to Castti was interesting, although I would have enjoyed more time with Maomao too. At the same time, Chiyari maybe had more range, although I already mentioned that Layla also being in the Brawl made the blood phantoms feel a little less important to emphasize. I don't resent it, I'm very happy I got so much time with Layla's memories and as I mentioned, I focused her on things she saw, so in turn, Chiyari got blood phantoms of those she faced like the raptors and Beckett. They needed a divider to avoid feeling too similar, which is also why Chiyari's phantoms also did some more long term ideas like having her be carried about by one after her injury or using Tiamat as a long term attacker rather than something present for a single blow. I did want to emphasize the ones she came into the Brawl with, Tiamat being the kind of thing I had planned well in advance as a sort of alliance separator or way to hold big guys at bay. I didn't have too much blood stealing planned in advance for her though. I of course anticipated the raptors, so maybe that's one reason why she didn't get many new ones. Also, she would be far more picky about scooping up blood off the ground, she's not like Anansi where quantity matters more than quality!
A bit of an accidental narrative emerged beneath things where Chiyari often instigated or picked poor fites for her little group. It's mostly because she comes with the social awkwardness and less of a battle focus than the other two (yes, Maomao was a Dragoon, she can be said to have some battle focus from that at least!). I did consider after the Brawl drawing a bit more attention to this, but it's probably just more this nagging guilt she chooses not to address even if she sometimes remembers seeing it when around her fellow doctors. Also, one reason she ended up crushed under that boulder was because I knew I could do such a severe injury and keep her in the action. She could float, always a nice feature since it allows severe leg damage without impediment, and she could be healed up from it, making the mountain's fall feel a touch more dangerous after so many had countered it well. On top of that, Chiyari maybe could have summoned blood phantoms to block rocks, but she is very slow, so it makes sense she got hit.
SAGE: Those nanomachines, son! Another reason clusterfite existed, needed it to be believable that she was being prevented from using her ace in the hole, although I did like my pre-fite justification. She's not just a pail full of nanomachines to dump, she had many other attack options to call on! Her being a big old robot with expendable pieces and plating was perfect for keeping others busy though, and it was likely the shear number of foes that meant she hadn't made huge headway until she could focus her assault more. At the same time, I did try to have Sage manage things well, like when she managed to integrate a good deal of people with the nanomachines. I've read the actual Sonic comics with the liquid metal virus, wherein Sonic is able to keep them at bay by moving super fast and they can otherwise be damaged, plus they sometimes take a while to convert you depending on how much got on you. The Kobbers are always able fiters is something I reiterate again and again, so there were counters like Jackson, although I didn't want to completely defang the move. The first use may have been a bit underwhelming, shifting the glyphids to her side not that crazy when they were written to be pretty expendable, although it was the start of Anansi's death in the end. I wanted to convert more brawlers at that point in the fite but it felt too disruptive, wrenching too many people away from cognizance when their number was coming up soon. It's why PS5 broke free how she did, but I did know that fiters like Patty could spend more time under control since she would go so far and have time to still show her stuff after the whole nanomachine business.
As the sticky notes earlier implied, Sage's presence was sort of backloaded, partly so I could have her start to snowball as her nanomachines made bigger waves and she could get involved in fites more personally rather than the powerful back-up to brawlers like Attami and 2B. We actually had quite a period of focus on her and her thoughts as she had to start adjusting to damage and such. One thing I didn't really use was Sage's own built-in weaponry, mostly because I didn't see point in taking down the Death Egg Robo Mk. 2 early. Her entry uses both versions of 2 for the name so I just used the one that appeared more. When the head was busted open some, she probably used the lasers and grenade launcher in her body to hold back the attackers, but we were so focused on digital space by that point. I had even intended for Beckett's dragoon sword to matter a bit more after it was left for her, but Sage was definitely fiting more as a commander and pilot than leaning on more direct attack methods. Using every attack option can feel good sometimes, but I don't want it to feel contrived, and Sage didn't lose because she failed to activate one is of course the important qualifier.
MICHELANGELO: Him entering helped me get the spelling on that name consistent! There's no Michael in Michelangelo! Of course he goes by Mikey too, but why we go with full names over nicknames and the other way around is sometimes arbitrary. Here it just felt more like I was talking about the Ninja Turtle to go full name, but the narration definitely was happy to have Mikey to resort to. Mikey being a friendly fellow is why he got picked to help Baffler, particularly because Baffler wasn't really a villain. Mikey could see a guy just wanting to have fun and was kind enough to help out, plus it felt right for the goofiest ninja turtle to have something clearly silly to attach to. His fiting style is pretty powerful and flexible, although I wish I had made him sneakier since that was something that was asked to be emphasized. I went on the wiki and dug up some of the cooler elements of his fire and chain attacks, I even avoided calling it a nunchuck too much to avoid people's minds defaulting to the old weapon compared to his more flexible modern one with the spiked weight and weight cancelling powers. I really wanted to have him snag a train car and lift and hurl it with the chain, just didn't feel like it was a natural part of events. Doing it to the Deathroller instead was sort of my consolation prize. I do think early Baffler/Mikey plans did involve the train car flip maneuver though.
I think allying with Baffler did make him fade into the background for a while though, it not really feeling right to have him pop in on specific fites since he had no skin in that game or there were already enough fiters clustered around. His entry does mention he's not really big on killing, he was a bit more playful before he got the Spider-Gwen kill to show he wasn't taking things too seriously, but it's another one of those cases where it would probably take a more direct set-up for him to hesitate when otherwise he's just fiting and fiting and then you land a move that kills.
2B AND MABEL: Considering their lack of bladed weapons in their entry felt like an obvious sticking point, I don't think, even after they acquired weapons, their Brawl run was defined by them. Partly, that was intentional! I gave them blades to keep them competitive, but with 2B I tried to make sure to emphasize her physical strength, the android's legs put to good use in battle and doing things like scaling stuff a human would struggle with. I didn't want to just invalidate what Draco maybe wanted out of both girls entering weaponless. Mabel was a bit harder to make work thought with just bare fists, especially with her alliance facing tough foes, but she actually maybe got a bit more emphasis as the sort of everywoman of the group. She would provide funny situations, attempt unusual strategies, and attacks focused more on ideas than physical might or ability. It still felt wise to give her that nanomachine upgrade though, upping her strength and defense as we got deeper into the fite.
I don't know if it was just me, but the way I wrote 2B really made her feel like one of the more capable and focused brawlers. I think it might be an extension of trying to make her work beyond blades, and compared to Neokama's many sillier members, her more reserved side made it easier to imagine her as cool and capable. The entry outright drawing attention to the lack of weapons means it would have been almost weird not to acknowledge it though. I don't recall where the idea of PS5 selling Neokama some weapons came up pre-brawl, but it felt like a great angle and actually one I almost didn't use! One good reason for separating alliances a bit was it did allow PS5 to find a time to actually sell the weapons, although I did wonder what I should give the girl's specifically. I essentially went with just fancy versions of their go-tos, not wanting to get tripped up on details or add a feature I might forget.
BARON/KATHARINA: We've had a few trains in the Brawl now, and I wanted this one to feel different and unique to the others, so I went in with an idea I call "train gore". Sure, all the trains get wrecked, but a really big emphasis was on the damage it took this year, the extra train cars definitely playing into it. More than anything I think the extra cars just gave me room to let it get wrecked more and more, although I did enjoy adding a castle to the back of it and messing around with other weird ideas like blowing out the floor. I actually don't have many clear specifics on how other trains were handled in previous brawls, I remember the broad strokes and specific scenes tied to them, but I deliberately avoided looking them up just so I didn't either duplicate or avoid them too much just trying to be different.
Katharina got to be the one to go further partly because I wanted to do more with the robot arms, being able to gradually work through them or find uses for them. The other reason is I think her attitude was a bit more fun, meaning anyone on board would be hit with a sort of deadpan character compared to the more over the top Baron. I know she's not purely deadpan, but the efficiency mindset meant she would handle planned boarders like Demo differently had they interacted more. As for the selected boarders, I wanted Leon on there because he was the first kill and I could directly damage the train early so it wasn't being ignored and set up Seregios's eventual death to it by having her pick a fite with it. Eleven Thirty was more a man without a home in the pre-fite, but since he was noted to be likely a bad hiker, it felt like a decent enough spot to put him and it fleshed out the boarders more. I don't think I need to describe the dining car's occupants, although I did sort of wonder how to handle areas like the dining car since the engineers wouldn't be heading back there to deliver food. The Artillery Car I felt like benefited from the lack of specificity, even if I wager others might have found the interior space fuzzy in their heads when the action ended up in there. I'm not even sure I could conceive of it now, and I feel if I started giving some details, it would in turn require more details to support them. We kind of ended up with a gneeric walking space, an area to man the cannons, and that's all that felt necessary. I definitely wish I could have rearranged the train cars a touch, just to keep some specific ones around a bit longer!
BOREA: I'm a little sad now knowing that this was Borea's final run. I mean, as she pointed out, she lost to last year's champion who used the Foodon from the finale of last year to beat her, but it's one of those things where I could have sent her off in more style. I do think if Spy ever gets an idea hit him just right she may return, so I won't be too bummed out nor will I request a return. I think leaving out the hoverboard was the right call this year, she's starting to get a good mix of options with all her fans and we've seen a good deal out of what the board can do so it feels a little tapped out. Borea herself, I don't know if having her hotswap the fans as quickly as she does in a battle is right, but it's more interesting! There's always gaps in time between sentences though, it's not fun to read someone pulling out a new tool unless it goes awry or its like, building suspense. She needs the fun option, she's got it! I did kind of get self-conscious about not having the chest fan be used overly much. Not as in I was keeping it safe, but more I didn't want to centralize her around it, especially with Ruukoto bound to eventually scavenge it. With her new design though, there were a few times my mind almost mentally defaulted to Zephyrus stuff like an arm cannon! I remember fearing I wouldn't do the Floatshoes justice (it could be very easy to end up in a flat part of the arena where they don't work out) but then I made ice walls and she found other moments so they weren't forgotten!
I did like the going solo angle, almost think I could have thrown her into the midst of more stuff, but looking at the Brawl elsewhere with things like Akhorne and Leo Luster plus Titan Dweevil last year and then Tricky before and I'm like, always letting Spy entrants kind of go nuts! It can't be done for everyone, although he very much does give me "fun toy" entrants since they have less on-forum canon to maybe restrict how silly or strange I can get. Boreas was the more serious entrant though so the lack of a sillier angle probably meant it wasn't likely for her.
BECKETT: With both Maomao and Beckett coming into the Brawl with tailor made alliances, I didn't feel it necessary to combine the two by way of the dragoon connection. Maomao's ties to the Dragoons never felt too social either, she helped out but I don't think it would be a natural gravitation. Instead, Beckett sort of got to be the back-up leader after Celeste perished, and I deliberately threw him some combo moves and moments where he calls out for quick effective aid to show that he was taking command of the situation but not being bossy. The people with him knew what to do the moment he called for it or indicated to them, Patty feeling like she did that the most.
For Beckett's own attacks, I ended up focusing most on trying to lean into his element mixing. I feel like we were on the edge of where it would feel dramatically appropriate for him to start testing its limits, perhaps if he beat Sage instead of falling to her he could have done three or more elements as a sort of "pass my limits" upgrade that brings to mind Marlow Briggs. Mostly I just tried to think of nifty elemental combos for him, again not trying to make him too focused on the standard Stream tricks, although I did start leaning more into his precog powers as he got deeper and we'd naturally see it mattering a lot more. I definitely broke his staff because I felt it was one weapon too many but didn't feel like saying so earlier! I think sword plus sais would have been enough, although if I thought the situation involving staff combat would be more interesting, he would have kept it. If it was more of a big deal I would have said something, but I kind of throw the character out to the world these days and see if anyone reacts to it thinking its too much. I did veto a weapon or two when it did feel a big flagrant. The fact Beckett was listed as trying to essentially carry in all the ninja turtle weapons should have been a giveaway it was too much... Anyway, as mentioned elsewhere, I did consider having his Dragoon Sword be relevant to either Sage or Patty after his death, but without his ability, it just felt like a plain blade. He did have that capability to tap into a sort of echo of Mnelrolth that would have been cool to use at some point, but I don't think there was a clear moment for it here. Maybe if there was a godbeast or a really tense power struggle or of course a deeper run, but I didn't want to cheapen it either by whipping it out for a less meaningful moment.
SIVVY: I do like the challenge of writing a teeny tiny character, although in some ways, Sivvy already got around that. She fites with magic that manipulates earth and water, meaning she was pretty much going to bring the heat no matter where in the arena she might be. This isn't a Dudemanguy situation where she needs to fite too much with her body, and I think that's one reason I was compelled to make her go giant. If anything, going big benefited her enemies, as it meant I could have them land hits on her in the narrative instead of trying to justify why she wasn't immediately squashed. She is such a threat with her power level after all that you would think she would get squished sooner! Not a complaint of course, just that I needed to make her survival convincing so she got the size upgrade. I did make sure she had some fiting before she went big to provide us some of the fun of tiny mode, but at the point where she speaks to One about getting the size changer reversed, I almost didn't let her keep it! As we know, Allison needed to get it later and I wasn't exactly sure when, but pretty quickly I decided I didn't want it gone from Sivvy for good until it had to be, a.k.a. her death.
Sivvy bringing down the mountain feels like a classic arena break moment to scatter the group, but it wasn't planned that far in advance or even in the notes anywhere. I wasn't sure it was believable even, and I even wondered about the logistics of just pulling a mountain down. It's not a stack of books, and I guess I was kind of thinking it would be weird to say you pulled down a hill on someone since a mountain is kind of just a meaner hill if you think about it! I think I needed that shakeup of the battlefield narratively though and having all the loose rocks and bits of earth about gave the arena some texture even once it kind of became a flat battlefield. I guess I also worried getting rid of it might make people wish more had been done on the mountain! I second guessed Sivvy getting squished because I remembered this picture in the back of my head:
VICTORIA/CHRISTOPHER: As you might already expect, Victoria outlasted Christopher for two reasons. One is because she's the first time entrant compared to a second run, and the second is because she's the master compared to his apprentice. I did feel a touch bad having Fiona be the one to kill Christopher, they are both sort of "alchemists" even if recycling magic isn't exactly that, but it wasn't really meant to be me saying she's superior. One reason Anansi was also there was because I feel like it's a lot easier to accept you lost to the spider titan who has a bug army plus alchemy powers on top, even if the scene did thin to Fiona being the one to take out Chris. Both of them essentially having a similar power set since they're both alchemists did feel a tiny bit odd, more in that I didn't want them to feel alike so we got a few more things like Christopher leaning into his sword's specific tricks first and then alchemy second. I did reread some action scenes featuring both to try and get a better sense for how they use alchemy, but one thing about RP battles is it's a lot easier to lean on the standard. Not every attack needs to be a big shakeup, but if say, Christopher kept using Compound over and over, it wouldn't read too well unless he's really doing crazy things with the repeat uses in a short span.
As the pre-fite show suggested, you need to adapt, so using the same moves repeatedly is the antithesis of that! Christopher recognizing his bad spot and burning Fiona's hands while she was stabbed into his leg is meant to show a sort of mature decision making. The leg was already messed up, but he could push through the added pain of heating up the weapon in him to get back at Fiona. I did worry a touch about him going out a good deal lower than Victoria, didn't want him to seem inadequate again, although he did make it further and again lost to capable combatants. Victoria facing 2B though was mostly because I thought that would be a good bit of fencing, although repeated weapon strikes aren't interesting to read so instead we got told it happened in a short bit before things started to shift in interesting ways. I think just the idea it could be a sword battle was what decided this particular KO, 2B is very skilled and an android, although I think I did dial back an initial idea that 2B would have greater emphasized that Victoria was too set in her ways while 2B was fresh and had all of history to learn from instead of Victoria likely settling into ideas 280s years ago. But, that felt like it trended too close to deciding character things for SK, so, instead it's a more basic description of the same idea without anything too concrete that would potentially not gel with Victoria's history.
MAOMAO: I knew I wanted those sprayers from the raptors on Maomao really early into planning. A big part of Maomao is revealing that she has harvested or prepared some sort of neat poison or plant with a special effect, although I wish I had found some even weirder ones than what I had gathered. I was proud that I learned about Xenotime almost entirely by mistake. I wanted a neat mineral in pre-fite, and while I hesitantly added Morkite from Deep Rock for the dwarves, I didn't want to do anything too valuable and potentially throw off harp plans. I was just looking into minerals and such and discovered the great name Xenotime and it happened to have radioactive properties sometimes, so bob's your uncle! As for Maomao's other poisons and plants, I went digging for Australian species and, as Maomao herself even said, made sure to avoid ones that would be too obvious. The brush area of the arena could provide, but they wouldn't be putting down famously dangerous plants, although it is a bit more fun to dig deeper than the obvious ones anyway. Of course, even if narratively I can say Maomao goes collecting early on to justify the finds, applying them can be a different story! That's where the sprayers could help. Some are only dangerous if applied a certain way or this or that and all so it's not like it completely removes some risk in using them, but it also felt like a fun upgrade.
The Green Orb's core was harder to figure out than all the plants! Mostly, it was because it was stated to be one use and limited time, so despite feeling the urge to whip it out frequently, I had to hold onto it. I knew the eventual skirmish with Beckett's allies would likely see the right time, but I think the orb could have really seen more use if we were going on the previous brawl's style of activation. I don't think it's bad, I certainly believe Maomao got great use out of her more definitive skillset of identifying and utilizing interesting natural resources for pain, even though I do wish a touch that we saw her use it to help a bit more as well. Having Castti around kinda meant she didn't need to though. I do think I had too much fun finding Australian plants that I didn't dig deeper on potential minerals, but also that likely would have been less broad and harder to justify. Not like mercury is going to be running through Brawl Mountain!
JIMBO: An early thought I had with Jimbo's cards was trying to make their effects match what they do in Balatro. Then, I read what the cards do in Balatro, and decided nah. Mainly its because a lot of their effects are very basic mechanical ideas. +4 multiplier if hand contains less than three cards, gain 3 dollars of sell value after round... it was a lot of stuff that works well in its context but really wouldn't be fun in the Brawl. So, a lot of the Jokers do pretty much what you'd expect based on their name or concept. Some were a bit more creative, Gros Michel made a rapidly rotting banana grove for example instead of just a single banana, but sometimes it was more fun to look at a card called Castle and use that for a very unique moment in a Brawl where a guy makes a castle appear. Most of Jimbo's stuff will probably be me just listing cards I wanted to use but didn't. There are a variety of emotion, deadly sin, and named character cards that I figured I'd skip over unless a situation really called for it, and I avoided that dagger one because it was too on the nose. The Joker card in Snivel's KO image is actually the standard Joker, meant to be a bit of a cute inclusion of a card that wouldn't be too interesting to use but would be in the deck. Really wanted to use Half Joker as a way for Jimbo to like, tear something in half instantly, maybe even a person. Mystic Summit, I considered Jimbo doing something funky to the mountain, but never could figure out what. Floating rocks would have been cool! There's a card called Egg I almost used for just throwing an egg at someone, Hiker would have let him climb the mountain better, I did a bit of research to see if Superposition could be a wild effect but never settled on any good idea, considered having Square Joker somehow buff him by making his edges blocky and maybe tough as a result. Thought about a DALI joke with Vampire, Erosion was considered for messing up the mountain.
I did try to think of what Jimbo could be, why he had these cards and all. In the Pre-Fite it was meant to be a bit ominous, like there's clearly something a bit supernatural about him, but as he revealed in the Brawl, he just likes to make the game more exciting and unusual. We might not ever know why he is what he is, but we learned why he does what he does! Even though Baffler was CKR's criminal entrant this year, I think Jimbo embodied that usual mystery about what exactly a new character entering the Brawl might do, and in some ways, there's always a balancing act there of making them quirky and interesting in some novel way but not having them be absurdly over the top or unusual for the sake of it. Magic Joker cards already went a long way though, and definitely opening that wiki list of them was the most I had to consult something mid-brawl this year!
ATTAMI: I'm glad Attami didn't fizzle out, another part of this Brawl's inadvertent theme of veterans doing better AND she plays into the giant stuff too! I did, of course, consider if the gigantification ray could be used for characters like Lee or Ruukoto, I think Lee maybe could have made fun use of it but Ruukoto didn't need it. Moreover, there was plenty going on that I didn't think other fembots needed the Mega Ray as much. We got big Attami and big 2B and that felt like a good use of its intended purpose, both getting to do a fair bit while giant sized. I did wonder if having the Mega Ray make 2B so soon after Attami felt right, but Attami had just got the crystal apple from PS5 and it was basically a way to excuse away ignoring cooldowns for the rest of the Brawl. Not that it really felt like she needed it in the end, she mixed up her attacks often enough that it didn't feel like it was too important.
Attami's a known quantity by now, and I think that usually leads to a different approach to certain abilities. Like, her making the giant rocket was the kind of thing once treated with gravitas, but it can not be worked into regular battle without the big show of it being a sort of game ender. It is fun because you can see it toyed with or used for different purposes as a result. I did wonder if I maybe overdid it a bit with the Attami food jokes, but I mean, it feels pretty core to her character! The part where her and Demo both appear from nowhere to chomp on burgers is probably the main moment for that, but it was a very jokey section anyway. There's definitely "joke logic" and then there's "this happens because I say so for a joke" and I don't want to lean into the second one, it feels like it ignores boundaries and characters for the sake of something that really won't work if it's not amusing and can still rankle even if it does. Saying Attami could jump out of a then unclear position in the arena to grab a burger feels pretty safe! I think it was kind of easy to lose sight of the fact Attami had the ray on her back, but it also is a detail that doesn't feel important until it is; she has better ways to attack than using it as a club and it's not like she took many back injuries.
GELATO/SORBET: At one point I got their names swapped. I am pretty sure I fixed it in all cases, but I knew the character I meant (as in, the physical appearance, powers, etc were all fine) but I just swapped the names around! I did waver on which of the two I wanted to survive longer though. The melodrama of Sorbet's death wasn't actually planned in advance. I had it noted down as Eleven killing Sorbet first and then Gelato avenging him, but as it came time and I started to envision the fite more deeply, I liked better the idea of a posthumous kill and a little time for Gelato to say goodbye. It helps when the two La Squadra members aren't supernaturally durable or whatever, so a wound could do them in even if they fite for a bit after taking it. Gelato got to continue on partly because I feel Sorbet's power, while more technically interesting, also left him a sitting duck and had seen some excellent use against Eleven Thirty. Definitely one of those cases where the picture with all the arrows justifies itself, as you can look through every name and realize how the powers could mix. I was a bit worried about it, Eleven Thirty's perception is extradimensional and Sorbet's is not, but disorienting them both because of it felt fun even if maybe I'd tread into describing things I maybe didn't have all the information for.
As simple as "having guns and knives" is as a weapon choice, it actually felt pretty useful. Long range and short range, which helped with the Eleven Thirty situation as there was a lot of delicate choice making in how to battle. I do think, without Sorbet, Gelato ended up being a bit aimless, he didn't have a strong direction afterwards going solo and maybe his death was a bit ignominious as a result. There was no big flashy fite leading to it, although he at least got an extra solo moment in killing Edgar by mistake. I did wonder if Gelato using his Stand on himself was fair game, I remember it being an issue with Josuke, but I do believe I found some evidence of him doing so before and dulling your own pain is a lot less of a major edge compared to reversing your own injuries. It also gave us a bit more Stand usage before he went since the situation he was in otherwise didn't have many strategic uses.
ANANSI: She had a lot of powers! To the point that even though she made the blood pact with Haymar and Naomi pre-Brawl, it felt like it wasn't necessary. I did consider having her whip out some of Naomi's powers at one point, but it also felt like it was more being done for the sake of doing it. She's a spider titan packing a lot of strong abilities! I did wonder how to handle her glyphid army quite a bit. I didn't want to bog things down by constantly mentioning specific types that might get you hopping to the wiki, so usually if one was unique, it got more focus. Like, the Septic Spreader received repeat mention since it was introduced and then you could be expected to know it. For the Dreadnaught she calls on, I chose one that wouldn't be too complicated, still tough, and I kind of invented some details for it. It calls sentinels in game to assist but they just appear out of the ground, which, in the Brawl feels a little weird. Why are they not there already, or how are they there just waiting to be called? Instead I had its tough armor serve as a way to carry them into battle safely so we could get it doing its expected tricks. Ananis losing to Layla was, as you might expect, a way to show that Layla would deserve to be champ if she had won that finale, although Ruukoto helping her laid a little groundwork for their alliance against the Tennessee girls too.
I did kind of wish I had Anansi explicitly mentioned to be absorbing blood, and at times, unlike Crim, I felt a little weird writing her more chimerical use of it. It's why we mostly see it in action either near her end when she's on death's door or when I want to at least show an attack like Lee's hit but don't want to kill someone yet. The giant black widow form didn't even feel that important for her, she's already packing so many tricks that simply getting bigger didn't feel too much of an extra edge! She still used it, but whenever she was in it I didn't feel like she was gaining much of a special edge save against other large entrants like Momoyo. I didn't feel a mid-brawl pact felt right, things weren't really spread apart often enough for such wheeling or dealing, and there would be the question of who she would even approach rather than kill. I think maybe I should have better emphasized the size of her glyphid army at parts, it was purposely not made too big too start to account for the weakness of them needing time to show up, but I also don't know if I sold well how big it got once it did get going.
GARIE: Seeing Garie's entry mention an unusual fondness for old men meant I knew I wanted her to hang out with Goldlewis, but didn't want it to be forced or artificial. I think Garie's playful nature makes it pretty easy to sidle her up to whoever I'd want her to hang out with though. Treating interactions as a game means you don't need as much reason to speak with people, you're approaching them because you think it will be fun. Goldlewis is already a fun looking guy! It worked doubly well since Garie's doll strength meant she could carry the coffin after Goldlewis's death, although I did lean her away from using the coffin's contents since she had enough tricks of her own. I do recall considering a pre-fite segment where it shows she's getting better at controlling steam, but ultimately it didn't feel like the arena made much use of what steam there was nor did she run into people with steam weaponry. I did worry her doing the paint trick might be straining her powers since paint isn't purely liquid, but I'm sure me saying "extreme circumstances lead to extreme strength" can be a broken record. The area being arid in parts didn't feel too important, there was the watery section she fought near at first after all specifically so she could draw from it, although I did make an effort to have her wield water differently than Sivvy. Sivvy could be said to be using it en masse, large almost "limbs" of water, whereas Garie was more precise or creative, hence things like the ice maze and all.
I did consider busting up Garie more, but didn't want her to feel like she lost steam too early or miss out on any chance I could to use her nails and teeth. That studded bat she got for a bit was meant to be more useful, but I think she's got a good enough power mix already and the nails are a more fun close range option than a bat for her. Not knocking bats, but Garie's sort of dancing/ice skating movement suits her kit well already! I did want to make more use of her body making chimes when she moved, no big feature for that but it did come up in the fite with Petra at least.
VESPER: The open-ended idea of gadgets did give me a bit of room to play, although I think beyond like, her hacking tool on Troy, there didn't feel much like a reason to deviate from some of the suggested ones. Mainly because, Bond gadgets are often stealthy tools or trap escapes, and Vesper's best tools in the fite were often her sword or own strength. Like, zapping you with the laser watch is not nearly as good as her quick-draw attack. There was the mentioned idea of her possibly breaking her arm if she cut something that could take it, and I did wonder how strong something had to be to block it effectively. I didn't go for anything as insane as the mountain cutting suggested over in the betting corner, that's very anime and I think it kind of breaks the logic of the fite. Like sure that draw is powerful, but I'm thinking maybe like, splitting a train car at most because of limits on the range of it. If she could split the mountain, she could cut the Brawl in half without needing to approach other brawlers even!
I did separate her from her allies more than the others to try and lean more into some secret agent tricks, Troy feeling a good fit for exploring that a bit more than other fites might. I made sure she was at least trying to rejoin the team despite distractions, she found her way to Beckett and all eventually, but she was more willing to fite alone since that was her forte elsewhere.
SNIVEL: While I definitely didn't want him to go too far since I have characters in my own cast I prefer, I think Snivel reaching 31st meant he got to use the whistle a lot, even if handing it off to Gwenpool would have kept it in play. I think Snivel was better for disappearing behind his rejected secret fiter assistants though, especially since he's not much of a fiter. I was glad I could get him to do some of his shtick; I didn't want him to just rehash things from the scuffle, but I found things like imitating a referee or therapist felt right in line with his silliness. Being basically attached to another member of Team Secret always kept him working well as a help rather than needing to bring the heat much himself, although I still gave him a straight up kill on his own to honor the fact he is a champion of sorts.
Of course, I promised here we would see more discussion on the rejected Secret Fiters he called in! If yours didn't appear, there was probably a reason that is pretty straightforward. Not enough opportunities to do it, their powers or such didn't match the purpose of the scene, or they felt like they would have worked well as a joke if they were the actual secret fiter but would demand too much attention as a brief cameo of sorts. I actually felt bad sometimes when the call-in didn't get to do much, I expected to do more with Yareli for example, her plague bubbles are a fun power, but the situation she found herself in wasn't really the best fit for her nor was the period of time she'd be on screen. I also didn't want to bog things down with the desummoning and all or always mentioning Kibosh's appearance, although we did have moments like him bringing in Browning that were meant to show his more fickle nature. I did enjoy writing Beetlejuice, in a Brawl with Bobobo it brought a different style, more a trickster. He's been portrayed a few different ways, I probably leaned towards a mix of the cartoon and stage show rather than the movies, especially since I haven't seen Beetlejuice Beetlejuice yet. Tails was of course the most important call, giving Kyouko and Perona some extra tools near the end. I did consider having the rings stick around longer, maybe if either of those girls went further, but it didn't feel like an edge the other finalists needed.
Generally, only Tails's appearance was really planned far in advance. Most others it was a moment that could have a secret fiter and it felt like the best fit. Whether that was Browning so Myuri didn't gain an edge to survive, Bloodflame so she could trick Yuran away from rejoining Karl, or Mitu to give us a strange scene and way to get Goblin Ref down. Also, all the rejects were from this Brawl's set. It felt easier to sort them, more thematic and appropriate, and I think most people would be more excited seeing the recent idea than one that was mothballed along time ago to hte point they may not even remember it. Not being able to do the little Secret Fiter explainer that they usually get when they appear did make some like Jovial Merriment a bit odd, but I also had fun with revealing unexpected elements like the horse girl change or Browning not having bullets. One other reason it was good to not have these guys stick around is that would be so many extra KOs, but more importantly, we would have got less of them in general since I wouldn't want a big crowd!
MOMOYO: Another Draco entry where I wonder when to pull the ripcord, although Momoyo's attitude generally makes it easier to justify when the big option gets deployed. Besides the moment where she was set to killy Venny I wasn't exactly sure when or where I'd want it, although I did enjoy playing her up as a threat so big she was literally a barrier to other fites. I was rather thankful to find out the Eiffel Tower is 1000 feet tall just about, giving us a bit more context for her supposed size. It does feel like she's still bigger than that, but I guess also, a tower is hard to contextualize instead as length. Regardless I knew I wanted her to be able to wrap around the mountain, so the mountain was as large as it needed to be for that to happen. I also didn't want Momoyo's tool kit to disappear or her personality, hence why she spent more time fiting as herself than Alpha Weapon.
I do feel a bit iffy about the way I had her transform back to herself and then got killed by Vimmy. She was probably weary and also not eager to get torn up more by having her big centipede butt hanging around to get attacked, but I think the fact I left the damage on her human body also made it feel harder to justify her fiting back in human form. Vimmy would have killed her either way in that weredragon form. The chaos stopping tools I took as a challenge even if it took a while for me to conceive of ways to use them. Like I've said elsewhere, Akhorne wasn't always destined for greatness, but her shovel was a good way of cleansing the chaos so he could help Kyouko and it wouldn't be as deadly as a pickaxe hit. I did consider having her play Minecraft in Pre-Fite but didn't think of a natural in, hence Gwenpool's joke that didn't amount to an appearance. Momoyo's centipede form is very hard to draw too.
PIYORI/RAMLETHAL: One of the few cases where a team has both members die back to back, and partly because I kind of saw the "Neokrasha" as a way to structure a post even though I think it felt more like a crash out for Neokama in the post planning than the actual flow of the brawl thanks to the time between kills. I did wonder how much to emphasize Evil Eye Sigma, it was almost treated more as an alternate form for Ramlethal's weapons rather than an individual, although I'm not exactly sure what kind of character I'd be expected to give it. It was another tool in Ramlethal's fiting kit more than an independent actor I felt, hence why it died at the same time as Ramlethal. I think if Ramlethal had got farther, perhaps with more of Neokama on deck or all hopes resting on her, I'd have leaned into her maybe accepting her allies better. Instead, we got her realizing that resisting them left her alone when her moment came! I did watch Ramlethal combo videos and such to better understand her fiting style, but I think in the end I just liked the slashy cape most as a unique attack type.
I think I was set on Piyori using her clones on Hannah even before I realized how appropriate that would be, Hannah able to whip up a set of her own. Of course the clones had to be used for a more intense battle, Piyori and Ramlethal kind of being too much of team players before then to whip out heavy duty options or showstoppers. Do think maybe I should have given them mabye another kill or spaced out their deaths a bit better.
BLANCHE: Perhaps it is irony that I thought to myself I wanted her to use the fact people can get under her shell only for it to mostly really be used against her! I was a bit worried about having her disconnect from it, I wasn't sure of the specifics on that matter (as in, how long she can go without it), but near the end that became relevant as her shell was about to go boom. Of course, the specific durability of the shell was a question, I didn't want it to feel too vulnerable but also making that hole in it was a pretty crucial part of her battles going on. Incidentally, her speed was perhaps one contributing factor to splitting up Neokama as much as I did, which I suppose is an appropriate use of a weakness. At the same time, her strength also meant she wasn't quite on the same fiting level as other Neokama members. Put her too close and those missiles and such would outclass foes that Edgar or Mabel would be fiting a bit quickly.
The Neokama segment in Pre-Fite was a pretty crowded affair, and while I had specific parts planned, I hadn't come up with anything for Blanche, which ultimately lead to the joke that she was late to arrive. I guess it was appropriate considering her lagging behind the alliance in Brawl, but it was mostly just an evolution of me not really thinking of a clean way to get her in there without it cluttering a scene that already lead to characters like Francine getting little focus! Blanche is cute and I wish I could have done a bit more with her personality and snail stuff.
PETRA/MAUVE: The idea of a giant piece of art drawn by one of the artists was a pretty early idea, and when it came time to consider which was first to go, one reason Petra won out was the more practical battlefield usage of her paint. Others being trapped in the big piece of art could have been somewhat interesting with Mauve, but not to the degree that she could take out Shirtless Bear Fighter unless she was getting assistance from elsewhere. Petra of course has the more boisterous personality so it felt like she could keep going and paint something that big and austentatious despite Mauve failing, although I did end up adding some emotion to Mauve's defeat. I think it's partly the art, but Mauve feels a lot more vulnerable, hence why she got the softer moments, but it also contrasts her with Petra.
The two were meant to do a lot more in the Brawl and Breakfast, just different gags and more attacks mainly. I do know I kept kinda getting tripped on what color should be able to do what. Like, I didn't want to say a certain shade has a specific affiliation but then Chao writes it differently elsewhere! Mauve's was more challenging of course with the emotional effect and I did think it was a bit of a shame to remove the option early, but Myuri deserved a kill too! I actually pegged the artists to face Shirtless pre-brawl, I thought of the idea of them painting some sort of false forest full of bears to throw him off. We saw a flicker of that with Petra luring him to the summit. I almost didn't do the tunnel gag despite the entry saying they will do it, but I realized it was a good way to shake Hannah as I moved Petra on to a new fite! Petra's definitely the better battle painter, I liked the mental image of the things she left behind like the little tunnel outline against Garie.
PS5/PS1: Even in the Brawl I can't help but feel like PS1 is PS5's supporting character! I even broke them apart but I think the polygon power has the sort of flexibility problem you see with like, Green Lantern. Not so much not being able to think of creative uses, but actually wondering why you'd go for something visually impressive when like, if you want to stab, just make a bunch of small stabby things, not like, a giant bed of nails or Freddy Krueger's glove, you know? It makes more sense for PS1 though, her being a scientist and analytical mind, although I do want PS1 to get her personality across more. She really needs to find a spot to do that away from PS5, but the Brawl's not the best spot exactly either. Amusingly enough, when I gave her the polygon power, I expected a lot more making things like the PS1 tech demo t-rex, but I think it also feels more unique to have her basically command a cloud of pointy diamonds.
PS5, I'm always having to dig deep into my head to concoct what DLC might be usable. Like, I did the Poison Ivy Axe purely for the chatzy meme, but others I have to consider on the fly. PS5 was turned by nanomachines specifically because I knew she'd have some way out of it, although I realized it wouldn't make sense for her to do it, hence Jackson's contribution. Troy messing with her menu was one reason he clashed with the PlayStation girls of course, and it was fun to imagine DLC going wrong. I think things like Battle Pass are powers that technically pay off in that she can punch above her weight class but don't really provide flashy upgrades. Loot box similarly sounds fun but I also kind of wondered why she'd pop one out here. That's more a regular low-stakes fite trick I'd think, here she'd pay for the good stuff. The crystal apple she gave Attami is based on something from those Kirby Free to Play fiters since it is what overcomes time waits. I almost think weaponizing bad mobile practices could be more devious a battle style than the solutions that are sold, but I was also wondering how specific her purcahses should be. Mabel and 2B just kind of got generic fancy sounding weapons, although I did sort of base them on Splitgate weapon skins. One thing too about DLC is a lot of it is of a similar stripe, I remember googling trying to find more diabolical uses. I'm glad MMOs exist for alternative accounts, thank you FF11 and 14 for making buying a back-up account come easily to mind! I never did, but my bro did! I did want them to not just be PS5 again, hence why they're more mirrors. Think about it: if you have alternate accounts, you have to control them yourself, so she couldn't just have them independently acting!
EVOLTO: I've said it elsewhere, but with a returning entrant, you got to focus on what's new, and of course, throwing black holes around is a pretty big deal! I will also say, I looked up the actual Black Hole business from the source material to see how really crazy it is, and unsurprisingly, it's a lot more like a gravity well than the awe-inspiring term black hole inspires. I stll kept the black hole incredibly destructive, but it was also something that could be escaped since it only had so much mass. I did also not read too much on the source material, I didn't want the fun ruined too much by trying to adhere him to exact elements that weren't in his entry.
I was a bit surprised I found as much use for his other forms as I did. Like, of course the newer tricks got the real focus, but the other forms were good for when he was playing more support to his alliance or contributing a quick attack. Naturally, tossing mini suns and black holes also put him in the "how do I keep this guy under wraps until he's needed" group, so, another contributing factor to clusterfite. I do think maybe I could have had him do more, break away more often, and he slipped through the cracks a bit at times I feel. Mostly again because I'd consider a fite, like say Vesper/Borea, but adding Evolto skewed the focus too much towards him if he was added. I did do a lot of the tricks I would have wanted to do last year, the organs, showing his snake self, so that's again a reason to lean into the new toys most of all. I do get the idea was he's at a different point in his character development, but I do wonder if he maybe needed to go even further, maybe be at a high or low so he could impact his personality a bit more. He wasn't as goofy as last year, but he still did that car city stuff with Vesper recently where he was mostly himself so, it's clear he's not quite reshaped yet.
SHIRTLESS BEAR FIGHTER: This was the year I knew I could give him a shirt! Just like it took a while to get Neptune's eggplant weakness relevant, I felt like it was a perfect way to balance out the battle between him and Hank for a while. In fact, it was meant to actually last much much longer, a way to incapacitate him and give us some time with the Brawl and Breakfast as he like, blearily lived there as a guest. But, the placement for Hank was too low. I was ready to see if Goop was willing to give drawing Shirtless in a shirt a shot, but the tractor decided against it! Of course, since Hank was portrayed completely positive, I didn't want Shirtless to look like a jerk killing him, hence why Mauve was able to push the bear to be more dangerous for the confrontation. I did wonder about the idea of Petra painting him a shirt, in essence, but I figured being coated in the stuff was deadly enough.
It is definitely nice to write a proper bear fight with him, instead of conditional ones like transformations and all. Shirtless is a gimmick character and yet he's not got to explore the idea very much! I did kind of wonder what to do with him after though. I know he will fite other people, but it will always feel a bit wrong. We lost hairy men like Ganpp too early for that transfer, but I figured emphasizing that he was a bit adrift after was appropriate! He got that important kill, against a very straightforward bear. Him fiting Hannah was something I sort of justified after the fact, like I thought it was a way to get Hannah involved again and then I realized I could have it be a sort of hollow "she's strong and hairy... that's enough..." he lies to himself. I'm sure I could have come up with something, but I also didn't want to taint his bear killing with hollow follow-ups. He did fite on and there was even a period he was worked up enough to fite the artists after Hank, but I do believe not tainting things was the right call.
BOSS/JIRRAS: Sheep's miners all sort of became a de facto alliance even if it wasn't one that lasted long due to placement. Boss and Jirras were, however, perfect for the early tunnel battles, and I was very fortunate Roark had red hair because I was not sure if I could do a convincing disguise bit with Jirras otherwise! I did sometimes sort of forget the tunnels might not be well lit, something I'm even reminding myself when we write stuff in Argo, but it's also the kind of thing where I catch the detail quickly and leads to things like the fite with Tyranitar these two had. I split Boss and Jirras in the moment after that fite but I kind of wish I had kept them together. Boss could have tried to help against the Dweevil and failed or just left small marks, but splitting them kind of cooked their turkey. Next we saw them they were getting killed basically, and they were a bit weird to insert otherwise since they didn't seem quick to pick bad fites or throw in with new people.
I think these guys are why "pickaxe" felt like a reasonable weapon to find laying around. Them and Roark, but Boss had two of them! Boss could have been more of a commanding strategist I admit, but I think Jirras's sneakery and trickery meant he took the lead in terms of what we saw. I did almost lose track of the fact Jirras has pistols amidst all his explosives, I don't think they strain the weapon limit necessarily because bombs are more of a toolkit weapon, but he did have such a range of explosives it was always where my mind went first. I know Jirras was set to die to Dweevil since they were both tunnel aligned, I think Boss going down to Piyori was just that I thought it was a reasonable physical fite but her allies kind of skewed it pretty heavily against him.
FIONA: Ha, PS4 got a placement with 4 in it. I was actually a bit conflicted on how to write Fiona here. Mainly, how to handle her powers! I didn't feel right having her use some of the objects she had copied in the plot close to the Brawl, the harpplot with the honey fountain. I bet no one would have objected, but the second thing was, and I realized this, is she really relies on the environment for her powers. She did copy Christopher's sword and all, but Fiona is at her most interesting repurposing objects in the environment and I realized that a little too late to make better use of her. She would have been perfect for the steamworks area and actually maybe would have benefitted from going solo so she could not get pulled into the alliance battle. I didn't want her to crater out since people want to see my characters do well, hence why she got the kill on Christopher, but I think I could have picked better opponents to make her powers shine more rather than focusing in more on her social connections and how to make a character like Victoria look good.
I reckon last year's brawl would have really been better for her. We kind of overcorrected from a brawl with a lot of stuff in the arena to one with much less which might be something to ponder as I plan for next year. I don't think Fiona did poorly, she's like literally middle of the pack almost, but she also failed to stand out when she is a pretty over the top and forceful character. I think too if there had maybe been someone outside of her group to latch onto it might have helped. Many of the short cuties, Paimon, Sage, Democurus, they were all kind of spoken for in terms of having people around them, so Fiona got locked to her alliance and lost someone like Naomi too early for it to mean much.
ELEVEN THIRTY: With that open-ended statement of the shadow being able to spread constantly if not blinked out of existence, the question before writing even began was how out of control it could get. It felt out of character for him to let it get too crazy, but we did see bits of it like when some of the mountain was briefly shrouded. Maybe if he had been beaten within an inch of his life it could just spread, but as we saw, I had a fun angle in mind when I realized he had otherdimensional perception and Sorbet could potentially tap into it. I was a bit worried I'd be writing it incorrectly, we mostly got like, Sorbet reacting to it and Eleven Thirty feeling off without his usual means of perception, I didn't want to give incorrect details. His entry does mention the time someone disappeared in his darkness and reappeared later, but I was also afraid to tap into that with so few concrete details. I will say, if he had done very well, that would have changed, I think placement is often a factor in how risky I go with characters who have deliberately obfuscated elements.
It was a bit hard not to have his darkness just do all its effects at once. It makes it a more fun and flexible power if it could do all its tricks at once, but it's reasonable it was limited. I think sticky darkness in particular I kind of wish was default and then you had the other effects on top of it. It's fun to imagine it as a solid darkness "virus" of sorts. I did enjoy writing his fite with the La Squadra couple because sort of similar to the hack fite its so perception based. Words can give you deceptive details or reveal their true nature after a bit. I think the fact I could do that definitely made him returning to fulfil the wishlist feel like it lived up to my hopes. Also, you likely noticed, but he never got to smoke, and as I pointed out in chat, somehow, placing 41st in the Brawl perfeclty lines up with his name since 11 + 30= 41.
TROY: Troy being the hacker type who deploys little robots, it felt right for him to play support, and having Paimon and Seregios there was a good way for him to be able to interfere without drawing immediate heat. He did sort of disappear in our return trip to when Seregios got eliminated, but I felt the scene was busy already and we later found out that trying to hide in the brawl can get you hassled. Of course, his bigger moments involved him actually using his hacker tricks! I very much enjoyed his ability to mess with PS5's menu, it felt like a way to make more fun use of a power than what hacking can otherwise be like. I didn't want to go full T.V. hacker, even with that later fite involving Sage and Jackson it was described like a fight despite it all being rooted in reality.
For which robots and Bangboos he used, it was often just situational. Look at the list and pick what's best, although there were some Bangboos I wanted to use more than others. I did worry I was maybe overdoing them, maybe having too many present that possibly strained belief, but Troy was also on the sidelines quite a while so he could have put a good deal together. They also got greater emphasis later on, another case where his early stuff was robot bug focused and then to keep him fresh we shift to his other skillset. I know I've wanted Troy for a while in the Brawl since he's a pretty consistent harp character, I wasn't exactly sure what he'd bring, but I think I got a good range of his options so he wasn't just the bug guy or the hacker guy. It was a full picture!
WIGGLE: Round 2 with Wiggle, and I kind of played with the idea the guy just can't commit to an alliance! His desire to blow things up leads to him going off his own way and that naturally comes back to bite him. His entry didn't mention his reforming pills this time but I figured we were meant to assume they were still around, so they were included. It essentially lets him be more fun in combat since he can break apart and all. It was said if the bones are intact he can reform, but I figured since no special attention was drawn to it, pills were still involved. Either way, he didn't really hit his limit so much as get destroyed beyond repair by PS1.
Also, the big bomb didn't come back to bite him, even though when I'm writing him I always think about how he's got that big bomb on his back. I feel like it should be an impediment, it's so large and could be easily damaged. You might also figure he knows that and defeneds it well. His spray cans were gone this time, I actually felt that absence briefly. With most of his weapons being throwing bombs around, a small shift to something different can give him a different edge in battle as well as something less extreme than blasting someone apart. I think I picked PS1 to kill him with the idea her polygons could shatter every bone all at once. Perhaps more importantly, his ability to only say Wiggle was meant to show Perona's continued problems trying to fill Zed's shoes. She didn't know how to deal with this skeleton!
HAYMAR/ROKA: I honestly thought I'd do more with Haymar's power to give people fire ammo, but look at the allies she ended up with. Generally, guns weren't too popular and the ones that did exist were in different alliances or would require a reach like Cafe Sweety to get Haymar on their side. I did want to have Haymar shown in a somewhat unflattering light at the end, to set up some drama with her grandma, but I also think maybe I should have given her some nicer moments. I mentioned the pre-fite segment where she trains Naomi is salvaged from ideas for a srspost that never came to be. Roka, though, I realized pretty quickly her way of communicating is not good for a fast-paced brawl. During an RP event I can write out all her motions and make it almost a game for the reader to decipher it. Mid-brawl, a whole paragraph of her gesticulating would probably either have to be funny or important. This also meant little of her personality got to come across as a result!
There are details about what's in Roka's suit I wasn't ready to reveal, the writer of the Brawl having an advantage there, but I did end up making suit puncture part of the kill. I remember thinking about writing a post-brawl moment where she was in the hospital, utterly unable to move due to stuff related to her biology. It felt like too much. I actually think, maybe appropriately, this pair works best with other Concord members in terms of interesting attacks. Roka's missiles are pretty straightforward, although I'm glad I gave her blast boots since that opens her up to more unique and direct attack methods. Haymar, I've been trying to avoid her just wielding fire in a normal way, which meant she isn't as quick to use more expected fire aligned attacks. I did wonder if I should have given them more kills perhaps, Roka's kill on Rainbow wasn't exactly a big payoff to her power use or something.
GOBLIN REF: I've mentioned previously I totally expected Akhorne to be a throwaway part of this entry, a brief attack or joke or something. Then Gooper put him in the title card and that really got the imagination swimming! Then again, making Akhorne big did sort of take away some of the squirrely stuff you'd expect from the guy. Like when a little scamper can cover a huge distance, I did have to write it differently a bit to account for the size change. I also mentioned Deathroller was meant to stick around longer, and in Bobobo's stuff I brought up Goblin Ref's cards...
I covered a lot about this guy already! I guess another thing is I had to go digging to learn more about the fungal ball, I had imagined it like something similar in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts that dangles from the back of the vehicle to stick to things. Fungus the Loon has a sort of ball and chain though which is less fungusy than I expected, although as the Brawl itself makes a joke out of, the fact I didn't get told what spores would do ended up aiding our meta aware characters. I'm sure I could find that info if I dig more into Blood Bowl, but Goblin Ref was already packing! The hammer at first felt like an unnecessary extra on top of everything else, but in retrospect I do get it. Gives the ref something to do if the Deathroller gets destroyed. This is, amusingly, an entry I've talked too much about elsewhere to have much left to say though!
EMMI TYPE-META/BLUSTER KONG: Curse you, overly long name without a good clear shorter name! Like, Type-Meta, acceptable, still a bit long. But calling it just EMMI or Meta didn't feel right! I think during his most relevant part of the Brawl I was just copy-pasting the name to make it easier on me. I was iffy on how malicious to make him, not wanting it to go to far even though I'm afraid it might have did in the pre-fite in terms of cruelty, hence why I even said that segment was just before the brawl so he couldn't menace Bluster much longer. I think I said elsewhere that I tried to style it more like a kid saying things to get a rise out of someone rather than potentially feeling that way, although he was a pretty mean guy in the Brawl too. Him being outright villainous in a way could have been useful, it did set him up a bit against Kyouko after all, but as we all know now, Bluster would be the one to really walk away from things with the spotlight, in some ways, shifting how the EMMI stole the show last year.
Bluster going Leo Luster, I'm glad I didn't just do it last year for the sake of it. Got to make it more meaningful and it could stick around a while thanks to Bluster's nature as an assistant! I even considered Leo Luster being in the finale, somehow being convinced to help Layla to make it look like I was tipping things in her favor a bit more. I couldn't justify it very well and before it even came close to time to write it I had keened on Perona inverting the shift. I did take on the challenge of writing some music for Bluster, not wanting to have him just parrot the Leo Luster themes but he does do small like, half-quotes to evoke the familiar stuff. Generally though, I wrote his power as Leo as basically incredible charisma, he didn't do much direct fiting at all, he just could gesticulate or speak and it would convince things to happen around him. Since there was no special hair gel or whatever inspiring this, I also just made it a confidence based transformation and took out the electrical effects from the show. I bet Spy could explain it some fun way why this gorilla in particular can become so handome it hurts. I was also very careful about who I would say found him sexy. I don't think it's too weird but someone might!
Back to EMMI briefly, I will saw I worried his abilities weren't shown the best. I think since his big battle was more a scene than a fite in some ways, some powers weren't given the pop needed to really make them stand-out. I mean, he permanently messed up Perona's legs and stuff and I wrote him shredding Guardener as particularly mean, but maybe because he has so many tricks I felt I couldn't get them all to shine before he was destroyed.
ALLISON/ANGELICA: I do feel rather bad that Angelica got much less focus than Allison, but it is also kind of the way things had to be. Allison and Ruukoto had the close bond, the rivalry with Cafe Sweety was a good backbone that needed to go both ways, and reviving both Allison and Angelica might have cheapened the impact of Allison sticking around. I do wish I had used Angelica's monocle to a significant degree, but one thing also about Allison is a lot of her tricks transferred easily enough to Allison after her passing. While I did joke it was a shame we didn't also get Tootsie, I almost wonder if the Alcremie being present could have thrown things off, like shift the dynamic to make me treat this team entry differently. At the same time, I feel like the combination of a possible revival and the brawl results would have lead to Allison being around no matter the situation. Allison using it to such effect did mean I didn't use the coil elsewhere though, when that had been a point of consideration for a while before the Brawl, to the point I was thinking which characters it probably couldn't revive.
Allison's size upgrade was of course to keep her more competitive in the back half, especially since I wasn't going hog wild on the Ruukoto upgrades. I did waver on how much scrap the girls should have, there were limits listed in the entry but also once the Brawl goes on a while they can get more, and the steamworks area was also likely to provide pretty nicely. Off-screen moments are pretty good for patching up things like that, as I'm pretty sure I exhausted the entry scrap in terms of what they could make. I might have mentioned something similar in Ruukoto's stuff, but I also didn't want Allison to steal the spotlight and be the clear reason Ruukoto won or something, so there were parts where Allison was out of the spotlight or kept from contributing in a bigger way.
PIPER/SNAKE: Ruukoto joining with Snake was a very early idea for how to carry the champion the distance, but I also didn't want Snake to immediately just get attached to Ruukoto. This almost became an issue when writing because in planning I meant for it to happen sooner, but I was giving some time for Snake to run on its AI and assist the maid duo so that aspect of it was more present plus it felt like if they attach Ruukoto to Snake, it should be for good reason. I believe Piper was meant to damage Ruukoto to the point the join was necessary, but it felt too rushed to get that combo going so I delayed it. Plus, the way the kills came up, it felt arbitrary to damage Ruukoto after that. I was a touch worried I got some of the AI details wrong on it identifying its "owner", again, holes between details always make me wonder for a bit, but as we saw, I went for the fun route of it like I often try to do!
Piper, I of course nearly forgot she was wearing the welding suit. It's not her iconic look! Considering she was sort of a "pilot" entry I guess I don't feel like I squandered her even though Snake got so much focus. I do wonder if Snake, even her upgraded version, moved a bit too fluidly at times, maybe if it wasn't part of a champion's abilities we might have seen a moment where it locked from bending too far or whatever. I did expect early on for some more tunneling antics, like appearing from below ground to people on the mountain to drag them down, antlion style. Maybe she did do something similar, or Ruukoto did? It's been a while, but I think I imagined the moment as much grander or spectacular even if I did make sure to work it in there somewhere.
MIZUCHI: Her possession power was pegged pretty quickly as a great way to mess up someone powerful, and when the results threw Celeste so low, it was one of the first death assignments I came up with! It's such a perfect means of sabotage, although I was worried Celeste may be able to resist it in some form. Since it was such a quick idea after I got the results though, I don't think I more deeply considered the possession power beyond that. I naturally had a few users or characters I would avoid and I really didn't want to mess up Mizuchi's journey by having her really earn some ire with a mean possession, which also helped the Celeste possession feel like such an obvious fit. Everyone can easily see the strategic benefit and hardly fault her for choosing a strong target, and it's not someone soft or kind either. I think the only real issue with it was that Celeste probably doesn't fit Mizuchi's "tastes", but I don't know how likely those would have been to come up anyway!
While the possession of Celeste was going to be her big memorable moment, I did make sure to spend some time looking into the spell cards and all so it wasn't all one trick. The handcuff being able to adjust as it moves through the air is a fun visual and I wish I could have made more clever use of it, not that I didn't try! Her joining DALI, I did wonder a bit about it, Brine hinted she wanted to talk to them before the Brawl but I didn't want to steal that moment from them. I kind of wrote it so that it's not like, 100% clear if it was all Brawl related, but she was also sort of penitent but I didn't want to overdo it. I definitely tinkered with the lines a fair bit to try and not push her too far or make her break character by being too sappy or something. I will say, I wish I had done her "cursed area" power that end up seeing no play, but it's not like a big missed opportunity, just more a power that could have impacted a scene in some way.
PAIMON/SEREGIOS: Seregios was immediate who I decided would be perfect for fiting the train, hence why she got the first kill of the Brawl! It just felt like a perfect fit. She's a big destructive dragon but not quite Momoyo size where it would be too one-sided, and since I wanted her to wreck the train, inevitably it became the idea for the train to do her in too. I did try to account for the preferences of the two girls, Seregios staying dragon mostly and Paimon not overly relying on moth form. In fact, I almost wonder if I underutilized moth form! I think Paimon having all those magic spells made it much easier to justify her not shifting though, and I did my best to namedrop them to make it feel a bit more Genshin aligned. I maybe could have looked up the magic to make it more accurate, but at the same time I think a lot of her spell use in the Brawl was really reaction based, like I had a purpose for wind or whatever other spell she whipped out, so I never felt like I needed the extra info!
I did feel a bit bad killing Seregios when I did. Again, I didn't want to cluster team deaths much, but I think also getting the first kill puts a bit of a timer on you in some people's eyes and I always try to avoid that. Getting that first blood should be an honor, not a death sentence! I've subverted and played with it in the past though, so it really just came down more to a good time for the train to get the kill. Paimon's attitude is a lot more open to jokes and she had the wider range of attack options, so she got to continue on longer. I did really enjoy writing them in Pre-Fite, I remember brainstorming a lot of bickering and such that ended up not making it in.
CELESTE: Rather amusingly, when Cornwind listed all those powers she'd not choose to use in the Brawl, I considered their mention so unimportant they didn't even appear in the sticky notes! Then, they end up being crucial to what eliminates her thanks to Mizuchi! I think it was great Cornwind even picked up on its good use as a bit of a character thing to continue Patty's brief issue about wanting to use them and not treating them seriously. Her body wrecking super modes, I picked the one that sounded less gruesome while still being practical. I did wonder if Mizuchi doing it seemed already a bit cruel, hence why I wanted to not take it too far.
For Celeste herself, of course she was bound to be the sort of leader of the alliance as long as she was alive, and I think it was probably good for Beckett she went out early. Gave him moments to show his leadership skills, rather than an old hand. Mizuchi also let us get around the concern of having to explain why someone with a lifetime of skills fell so early, we didn't even need to necessarily dive into the well of her being priority targeted like some other huge fiters who bottom out. I think it's easy to tell which of Celeste's weapons I found most interesting, because the "pinball knife" Ramification got the kill on Roka. A lot of things like her Read didn't really have time to arise, that would probably require the more personal moments of late Brawl and more deceptive types.
GOLDLEWIS: With Goldlewis's coffin, it was very tempting to have him whip out the minigun early, but I tried to save it so it was more impressive. I did watch some Goldlewis combo videos and such to figure out things the coffin would give him, the floating grenade that came up being a very common one, but it didn't seem to have too much range so I let myself invent a thing or two for it. I did consider having the coffin stick around much longer, but I think the being within might have made me a bit testy about it. It assisting Garie made sense because they had the pre-existing connection, but after her death, who would it go to? Maybe Maple, but nothing was really clicking in my head. I like the idea of a coffin on a chain weapon, I considered a character with as much you might recall, but also in combat it's not too flexible since it's mostly big swings, although I did enjoy the exact kill method of slamming it down.
I do wish I had come up with some neat use for his glasses having target capabilities. Maybe if he had got involved with some robot entry or something, but I remember seeing that detail early and making a note to try and find a situation for it. I feel like if anyone fits it might have been Death Egg Robo Mk. 2 but that's a Draco char so it would be an odd way to get them together to use the targeting trick.
RECKLESS RAPTORS: To learn a bit more about these guys, I actually went and watched some clips of Extreme Dinosaurs! It's easy with their name and their source material to mistake them for a group of three buffoons, but there's more going on than that, and I'm glad I watched some clips to really help me nail down the personalities instead of just running on basic descriptions. If I couldn't imagine Spittor's Peter Lorre voice saying something, it got adjusted! Also, Bad Rap is a lot more... suave? I think is the word, than I expected, although that might be partly because my main viewing choice was an episode where the Raptors were like, doing a plot involving Hollywood. One reason I also watched stuff was to get ideas for more things for Spittor, but I ultimately tried to include the suggestions most of all.
Haxx was the first to die for what I think are apparenty enough reasons. He's a team entry member which means it's good to give a low placer a kill (I think we almost got team kills as the first KOs initially rather than Leon, which would be a good show of the Brawl's focus on letting teammates truly get spotlights for their falls!). Anyway, Haxx was not the leader and not unique like Spittor who was destined to face Maomao due to my plans. As a result, he went down first, but I was also kind of glad to be rid of his claws. Holo-blades are kind of a weird weapon in terms of not quite being lightsabers but being more than metal. I'm overplaying how "glad" I was, but by having him die quickly I skirt the potential to misrepresent their power, and they did get to do some shredding before his death. Bad Rap's jaw might technically be worse in a fite, but his attitude made him good to stick around, and I do think having to battle with your mouth is technically more interesting. Their pre-fite segment and all was very much meant to lean into their sort of Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy at least, the guys fighting like jerks on purpose even if they didn't do anything particularly bad compared to things like Type-META.
FRANCINE/EDGAR: I knew from basically the moment that Edgar was an assistant that he was bound to outlast Francine, just because the option would exist and Neokama was not likely to end with just Francine as the final fiter. Of course, the question from there becomes how long Edgar should stick around, and I don't think I had a huge idea for things he would do while still on the team. Him fiting hand to hand was partly why, it doesn't exactly open up new avenues for the team, but it did at least give us another person around for specific moments and he was often pretty good at holding a foe at bay or delivering more straightforward attacks that buy other Neokama members time. In other words, kind of a good leader since he was assisting others! Of course, paying PS5 was a big moment, Chao even messaged me specifically to ask about the potential of a mid-brawl buy like that. I kept it to just the girls who needed edged weapons, felt like even Edgar, with his loose money, would not go overboard unless he really got a good sales pitch or something.
Francine getting briefly punched by her Stand is sort of a backwards reference to Josuke healing with punches from his Stand, and while I'm fairly sure a Stand can punch its owner to hurt them, Bobobo rules were also at play at that time. Francine's personality was also on show as she was showing her more frustrated side and that ended up being her downfall. Sometimes you need that patience, miss waitress! I almost had her be the waitress in pre-fite but that didn't make sense and went against stuff she said in RP! I did enjoy trying to come up with ways for her gravity to work, I wasn't too sure about the wedding scene in some ways but Francine able to weaponize the chairs made me happy I expanded it to be a bit more elaborate.
NUBI: While it was listed as a potential mid-Brawl interruption, I think using the phone call from Amira was a pre-fite segment was a really clean implementation of that element of the entry! It got to be a little ominous, we got a more relaxed playful banter, and Nubi doesn't have to like, break from battle or something to answer the call from her sibling. The need to one-up her sibling and being a holy agent did mean I decided to attach her mostly to foes that would make sense for her to fite. A demigod in the Brawl was a perfect target considering the results and the need to eliminate Myuri early, and then while maybe I could have pointed her at DALI or something after, I think Snivel and the related Beetlejuice encounter felt more right. I didn't exactly plan Beetlejuice heavily in advance, but once I knew they were to fite, I did think he would be exactly which Secret Fiter Reject should appear there.
I really did enjoy having the Glint emerge as a sort of ace in the hole she would use to shift the battle back in her favor. Her desire for a flashy fite also lead to her sort of sword draw trick where she drew a few in a row. I think I also had Vesper on the mind and her reliance on it, but I wanted to have a moment where having four swords mattered and Nubi was noted not to really fite with them normally, so instead we have the quick draw string. It wasn't until I drew Nubi that I noticed some of the finer details of her face, like her holy freckles, but the way I colored her and shaded in the black meant that instead we just got more pupil emphasis than the source image.
TITAN DWEEVIL: Well, guess we can't have another meme run of sorts after the last year! I did throw in a little reference to the Titan Dweevil popping up everywhere by having it be the rare case of something crossing into two Pre-Fite Shows without being like, a host or some such, but otherwise, it was big bug time. At the same time, the size changer, as we saw, was a huge boon to the Brawl in general, and I guess the Dweevil dying when it did was key to that happening. At least Akhorne got its power too so Spy characters weren't left out of the gigantism fun.
The Titan Dweevil being so large actually made each weapon it had far more important this time. I did initially want it to focus a bit more on stealing the grappling hook from Karl, but ultimately that's a small bug's weapon and Dweevil mostly contributed in big bug form. It actually maybe was more accurate to Pikmin 2 this time in that you wear away its weapons, although it was a bit hard to keep in my head what I said was damaged by things like Jirras's bombs. It is a bit of a shame for a guy who made it so far last year to get a much weaker run as a real entrant, but there's not only the meta reason, but also the Dweevil was kind of just popping up places until it had a few moments of true relevancy. While it didn't continue its memetic legacy (Conductor had a similar situation) it did at least really have a huge impact on the Brawl itself because it brought a little toy that practically gave the Brawl a theme in character size changing!
HUNGRY PUMKIN: Getting Gooper to illustrate the corrupted Hungry Pumkin was a late idea, not too late of course, but it wasn't the kind of thing I noted down in my growing image list as I wrote the Brawl. I realized though, of course, that the brief godbeast nature of him was good for it. I didn't have him get too big, partly because he simply didn't have the time/food to build up to be too enormous, but I did want to make the jokes about him being basically a monster and we got a bit of Rickle for even more memey food. Of course, perhaps more than anything, that Parry idea of Spy's really influenced how the Pumkin was written. I didn't want to humiliate Cornwind's characters when they stood up to fite it, but it having that near perfect deflect ability was good for making it a threat and hold them at bay when they realized they should come in and clear the monster before it gets stronger. As mentioned before, I even wanted Reduin to use him longer as a means of parrying away opponents, like a shield of sorts.
It was almost easy to forget about the book as I focused on the parrying for a while, but we did get to see pretty much all of the powers the Book of Pumkin Land was listed as having as well as me getting in ones not mentioned like the clotheslines. The alligator was perhaps underused, but I was a bit proud I got the barn dance to actually do something more than just be mentioned for a second. Demo getting the book felt right for a few reasons, although now that I'm looking back, I'm surprised he didn't eat any of the pumkin. I did figure he was too smart to let Tyranibble flesh into him a second time though. I didn't the Pumkin to just like, be only the meme the whole Brawl, we got some of the necessary stuff like eating more than just food in pre-fite, and then we get to see how it can be applied in weirder situations. He didn't stray from his core traits, he just didn't have to like, demonstrate his weirdness only, he was able to evolve a bit. While his placement certainly kept him from being more of a godbeast, I also think it meant we only got the brief time with him in his corrupted form when usually I try to let such things run amok more these days.
ROARK WITH PUPPY: We have reached the placements in the Brawl where you have to start not giving KOs to someone, although in this case it wasn't really about denying him some compared to him just not getting a KO by process of elimination. One thing I did like about this trainer duo compared to some in the past is it felt pretty reasonable for Roark to climb on Puppy's back and ride it. Like, Tyranitar is technically human height, but Mega Tyranitar it felt more reasonable, although even thought it's a bit over 8 feet, I probably thought of Roark as much smaller. I knew not to have it get scaled like a kaiju or anything, and the ability for pickaxes to break its back makes sense when you consider the size difference isn't that crazy. The fact it was made of rock did make me want to do that specific attack on it too.
It going Mega when it did was probably not really something I think influenced by its placement. It's not like Gigantamax where it makes you a bigger target really, so I don't know how long I would have waited to pull the trigger since it does give Tyranitar some more bulk and tricks to play with. I think I did intend it to have Sandstorm up more often but it also is the kind of thing that probably would get tedious to mention. I do think there was more room for the Tyranitar to do stuff, I think if more tunnel battlers had made it far tunnel battles in general would have been more prominent and let guys like Puppy show off.
MELONE: I think we all expected Melone to go further, and unfortunately less time with Melone means less mutant Juniors. While there is a canon look for a standard Junior, I do imagine a lot of the ones summoned in the Brawl had unique looks and were sort of smaller since they were being made rapidly and in abundance. Melone also kind of ended up focusing mainly on utilizing Juniors related to La Squadra since he wouldn't have a lot of time to collect DNA, although I did want to have DNA corruption be his undoing, hence the Maomao trick. Unfortunately, also placing low meant people he encounted like Kay and Jimbo didn't exaclty bring wild powers with their DNA. I also feel a touch bad he was in the same Brawl as like, Chiyari and Layla and all. It was getting to a point where so many people were going to do the copy trick that Melone ended up leaning more on what he brought in with him rather than making new acquisitions.
I did avoid Perona's hair being used because I'm not sure how I'd actually represent that considering the odd nature of her powers, maybe just floating and intangibility. But, I did establish in the pre-fite segment that he had Stand access so that he could bring all the fun of last year's La Squadra entrants. The cube trick with his laptop was something good to have since otherwise he wasn't much of a fiter up close, but he was always going to be more support in a way. That does mean they're all support in La Squadra this year, but the Juniors aren't! They're the front line, or at least were meant to be. I do think Melone dying first did give them Sorbet and Gelato more room to show off unique tricks and all though, since otherwise the Juniors would have definitely been king when it came to what was focused on during confrontations with the group.
MYURI: There were a lot of creative uses of the wheat mentioned in the Brawl votes and analyses and all, but Myuri got 62nd, so, nothing crazy like finding the cracks in the mountains for wheat to grow through and all that. I did definitely want her to do better, especially with the Team Secret deal going on, although an alliance losing members all throughout the Brawl is usually pretty appropriate too. Still, she was a sort of wishlist fulfilment so of course I wanted her to do more! I was a bit surprised she had matured and tried to both keep that in mind and get some of her more fun and silly side in there.
Incidentally, I have her power to hide in grain listed as "hides in grain like Vaporeon" since I guess the acid armor from the anime has stuck with me that long. I did definitely do the specific types of tricks and attacks I knew I wanted to do with it, and it was good for giving us that fire early on, but I also think sometimes it's about the potential I don't realize until I have more reason to ponder it that could have lead to more wheat fun. Myuri herself being a big wolf was naturally good for a scrap too, I knew I wanted her kill to be in wolf form. I think the wheat travel deal was always going to lead her to getting a bit isolated from her allies in a way, that freedom of movement meaning she can cover more ground. Still, I tried to have Snivel stay close so she wasn't just abandoned by the team even when the Gwens ended up elsewhere.
RAINBOW: Bringing the crystal ball and the cards as weapons did make me wonder if they'd get any play, and sadly, it didn't feel natural for it to. I ended up attaching her to Neokama because her pretty strong focus on getting paid for work made her a great get for Edgar, the ability to pay for an ally just an easy way to get Rainbow somewhere she wouldn't potentially be outclassed. Like, she didn't have much more than kung fu so leaving her on her lonesome would likely make her feel like she's waiting to get wrecked, but having her on Neokama would make it feel like she could go a more reasonable distance, and she did contribute some! I do wish I had done more with her ability to attack supernatural things. We got Perona and Layla running into her primarily so we could get a bit of that, but Roka killing her wasn't really anything tied too strongly to them having some sort of dynamic or reasoning for it. Maybe I had one at the time that was deeper than just feeling like it would be a reasonable casualty of some alliance fiting.
I think one good reason to put her in an alliance too was for her emotional influence to run wild on them. It was of course very relevant to what ended up being her doom, and a Brawl was always going to be an easy reason to trigger it influencing others. I don't think I really got to do anything too deeply with Rainbow, every skill and element still having some room to make for interesting scenes or skirmishes, but Sheep was on his champion's run. I think if she had entered in the past she might have really caused some crazy interactions as emotions run high and out of control, and maybe she could have kicked a spirit's butt! Instead, 63rd place.
KARL/YURAN: I will admit I did briefly forget the explosive bolts were more metal than I recalled, as in, they blow people's blood up instead of just being a big boom, but I was glad to see when I did quick edits that I hadn't misused them. Otherwise, I do wish there had been more room for them to get really involved with their unique weapons like the platform gun and all. I don't think Yuran was actually meant to die at the point he did, but I moved the death up because I realized it worked well for Karl disappearing and then Yuran obviously wanting to follow his ally. I believe the original plan was Spider-Gwen would be swinging around the tunnels and end up killing them there, but the flow of the fite decided differently! I think they could have benefitted from a more underground brawl, the tunnels through the mountain didn't have many huge chambers that would favor the dwarves.
Funnily enough, despite having a good deal of DRG experience now, they were still using some weapons I had no first hand knowledge on! I did like the idea the Shard Diffractor, hence its return later in the Brawl, but I also didn't want it sticking around because it felt too much for Snivel. Maybe I should have handed it off to someone else then? I do wish I had done something with Yuran's empath powers. He had the charm so it would take something more to make them really kick up, but he also died so early that there wasn't a lot of room for them. I think Karl was always intended to go further simply because of his wider kit of tools, although if they had gone really far I reckon Yuran would have gotten the spotlight since he's more established. I'm also a sucker for the Scout in DRG, compared to a sentry building class it's more flexible in the game AND the Brawl!
BAFFLER: Oftentimes, CKR and I talk about her entrants on the phone, so I usually get to be privy to some of her intent with a character even if that doesn't show up in her entry. For the Baffler, she was clearly amused by his incompetence, and the part where he sends child-like drawings to the medical trio is based specifically on a moment in his source material she liked where they find his clues and think a kid made them because they're so bad. At the same time, the Baffler basically being a good guy who is only a villain because villains are able to be more fun was more something I invented as his unique angle. It is sort of close to the original in a way, in the comics he does want to be a villain but he's not really evil at heart, but it's not for the reason that bad guys have more fun. Just seems like he got tired of being a generic forgettable guy. Funnily enough, that part in the Brawl where I mention his name was me realizing I had never bothered to really commit it to mind compared to other CKR supervillains, so I just threw it in there as a joke.
The Baffler being incompetent is part of his shtick, but also, I avoided any hidden depths because it was clearly meant for him to not ever be too capable or complicated. I did still give him that moment that makes him memorable instead of outright making him an utter failure, although Mikey's support was definitely a big reason that came together, as implied. He needed someone to notice him and not dismiss him! It's honestly almost close to the kind of character I might write, but just kept fully silly. One reason he utterly fails after his big thing though is to show he had no martial prowess or cool gadgets. He gets his butt handed to him once he actually has to stand and fight. He is basically knock-off Riddler, and it's not like the Riddler was a good fighter, although they do keep upping that guy's power level these days as he gets more and more popular. I am very happy with Gooper's art of him, he went the extra level with the pose and voting jokes. The ref standees were my idea, to really show he's not the brightest even when he does get the good plan of causing the rockslide. I imagine if he had done even better, he'd somehow have tricked a person into eliminating themselves rather than fiting well.
HANK: Hank's been mentioned many a time by now, mainly that the Brawl and Breakfast had so many plans that didn't come to fruition. I think of the ones not mentioned was a large breakfast area for characters where like, Cafe Sweety could have their coffee bickering, and that Hank was originally going to be more violent but only because people weren't signing the guestbook so he would turn completely friendly once they did. The Brawl and Breakfast ended up fairly small in the actual Brawl when I was hoping it could be more a large lodge that could feasibly host like, even two fairly decent sized skirmishes at once. Instead, due to Hank placing where he did, we got something more ramshackle and maybe appealing in its own way. It crumbled nicely and broke apart a lot in the fite, and it made killing Hank easier since Shirtless Bear Fighter didn't have to really go ham on harming him. I even made sure in the KO pic that Hank just looked "cartoon dead" instead of really harmed much.
In Bear and Breakfast, Hank can't speak human, he makes animal noises at them but when he talks to animals we understand him. I figured I'd keep that, and I also kept his fairly friendly nature. In the Bear and Breakfast trailer that the game is probably known for more than anything, he's made to look more incompetent, and I guess in some ways that bleeds into how the Brawl and Breakfast was put together in such a rush. Of course, if he had more time to work, it would have not been as important to rush it. I reckon it would still be sort of ramshackle, and more jokes might have been made about where the heck he got materials from. I guess most people wouldn't have objected to me allowing him to build it in advance, I think that was the old pre-fite intent too before I shuffled some stuff around. Since I made him so friendly though, I was glad to have something like Mauve's paint to let him actually put his bear strength to use without breaking character. In some ways, dying early also meant I could do that trick and not have him like, need to get angry again, but also he would have probably been nice and kind even if he "fought" before then if he had made it further.
KILLT: Alas, I wanted this DRAGON member to do better so we can get more juicy details on this organization! It is a bit hard for a gloomy unknown to get support though, so he didn't get to go too far. I did try to come up with some interesting ideas for the dragon spirits he called upon, not just have them be generic standard beasts. It having room to be more monstrous than just straight up dragons also gave some clear wiggle room there, although I do wonder how far I would have gone had there been more room. I do recall thinking of some like, mega dragon thing for if he made quite a run, but nothing ever really solid beyond just a clear top tier summon.
I did also consider that he was sort of luring them from underground rather than calling them from somewhere else. Like, what dragon spirits might lurk in Ulimaroa's past? Him being a mystery meant the sword didn't continue on, I didn't want to possibly break the rules of whatever allows it to summon. Sadly, with this low in the Brawl, I don't really have much that gets left on the table since I don't need to plan multiple battles, but Goldlewis was picked to fite him because then I'd have two big tough guys duking it out which would allow some of their more serious sides to show a touch.
NAOMI: I imagine the path of Concord in the Brawl would have been quite different if we had got Naomi long enough for her and Haymar to like... do anything together. A very tragic placement for a girl with a buttload of powers! I really did worry I kind of rushed their use, but I wanted to make sure to include things like making use of her hair and all before she went and there was a time limit on it essentially. We didn't even really get to have the berserk moment because I felt that would have been too gratuitous, like, if she's going down so quick, it would be almost rude to have her freak out and then just get squashed.
I ended up emphasizing her food magic and elemental stuff most, food magic because it was unique and elemental just because it could show her training with Haymar paid off and it was pretty flexible. The astronomy magic ended up barely a factor, but we also have had like two brawls now with people who had constellation magic and all from Harpy so I didn't feel like I was leaving a stone unturned, just trying to turn this stone in an interesting way with what time we had. Naomi being the nervous wreck she is at least made it easier for her to have that sort of panic moment that showed how chaotic the early brawl was with the many alliances clashing. She simply got overwhelmed and that helped to accentuate how the clusterfite was different than other alliance clashes of the past.
KAY FARADAY: I guess I bet on the wrong horse when it came to Roserade's entries! I have seen Kay's face pop up more online since the Brawl, might be just knowing who she is now that is causing that. But, for Kay in the Brawl, her low placement also made it feel like exposing some big truth was probably not in the cards. We got our answer on Jimbo eventually, and that was decided to be her main target and ultimately what did her in. I did tease the idea of her snooping on Stella too and considered fleshing that out a touch during their fite in the Brawl, but I wasn't sure if there was much to grab onto compared to the blank canvas of being able to say Jimbo had been seen at skeevy and sketchy places. Stella has in-RP plans and details and all so I can't dig quite as deep! Still, her taking on Stella was meant to at least tie into her investigative side even if she didn't find dirt.
It is a bit of a shame her gadgets didn't get to continue on I'm realizing, although they probably turned to gold too. I did want to make the most of the more flexible ones while we had her. Things like the wings and all were more utility compared to the holographic trickery that could be used for more unique strategies. Considering she's not too much of a direct fiter it's not too bad she didn't continue on, but I liked her spunky attitude and I do think the holographic environments had a lot of potential. Maybe too if we had gotten a different villain from CKR, like if Vulture was this year instead, she could have really hounded someone harder on an investigation.
XAPAN/GANPP: We've basically heard why Obda got be the bird-a to keep on going, but let's repeat in case I left something out. Obda was the more docile and obedient of the two, making it feel more believable she could be convinced by others to join them. I did realize after a bit that maybe Boss and Jirras shoudl have had better luck corraling her, hence why it was mentioned I think once they tried, but Layla would end up being the one who Obda was destined for to patch up her need to focus which would leave her a sitting target. Berda, basically being just a second hippogriff, ended up being part of the early death as a result, although considering the two actual entrants weren't going far, it wasn't likely I'd keep both birds alive anyway. It helped Ganpp have a moment showing his care for the hippogriffs by him trying to ease the bird's suffering and fiting to his death to try and save her. Ganpp went out so quick though I barely got to use the blowgun, a great regret!
A team getting second to last always leads to a bit of a rush out the door, and that's definitely one reason Obda got to stick around, to give them some impact on the Brawl despite their early fall. Xapan got to be more extreme, I think his kind of crazy intense death was partly a result because of the fact I don't plan KO methods as much anymore so I got to the point in the fite where he really felt like he'd keep pushing and go that far. We didn't get to see much of his trickery or anything, but I hope the lengths he went to to try and take down Karl felt right, a lot of it clearly drawing inspiration from how he acted around Concord.
STELLA: A good deal of the way I portrayed Stella was based around that one post near Brawl time where Patty comes over and does that thing where she grabs the letter that was getting thrown into the fireplace. In the post itself the reaction was milder than expected, so I didn't have Stella be too over the top haughty rich lady, although I think most people would have probably had more extreme reactions to their private mail meant for burning being snatched by a stranger to snoop on. I did keep her from Patty partly because I can't imagine their relationship, even with narration saying she at least respected Patty's spunk, to be anything warm. Octavia might have gotten greater support since at present Stella feels more positioned as her supporting character, but at the same time, some time for Octavia to make her mark might help her do much better than her mother.
I didn't pull back completely on letting Stella go a little ham. It's a fite to the death and she brought a mallet and some ice powers. The mallet wasn't even that crazy of a weapon and yet it continued on I think solely because of that, it was easy to transfer it to Kay to give her a reasonable means of attack and one you didn't need to be tough to wield. I think her personality would have been what determined how she fought had she gone further, she didn't really get to pick her battles or anything. Maybe could have had her actually encounter Borea after that pre-fite segment! That was more about mindsets than setting up an encoutner though. Stella was flying solo, to her doom.
LEON: Last and appropriately least as some people pointed out, Leon! That sour attitude didn't get him much support and I guess that lead to the tractor cratering him down here, and it's hard to be upset when it lead to good character stuff after the fact. He was definitely placed on the train partly so we could have early train battle that lead to his death, but having Pharoah Sanders able to also protect the large train reasonably from incoming threats also made a good argument for his inclusion there. I picked him for the Seance card for Jimbo to give him a little more time to show he was a competent fiter, although I did consider other options but ultimately felt a little more spotlight for him and little less crushing his dreams might be good. He still didn't do anything crazy coming back, but he showed he wasn't a pushover! I guess he fought pretty hard and all before then, although I didn't hold back on his acerbic behavior since it would make it easier for people to accept his loss even without the RP context if they were someone like Roserade reading up.
I can't say I really had big plans for him either. I didn't figure him for going far, he was kind of entering with the admitted idea of being comeuppanced, but I didn't want to rub it in unless like, it really felt appropriate. Maybe something more clearly criticizing him could have come to be, which is why it could have been nice if he went a few steps further. When you have 72+ people running around though, that first post is going to be busy and packed, especially in the modern writing style where it's not a bunch of one-on-ones!
And thaaaaaaaaaaaat's it! Done done done! The words are written for your consideration, and I hope I transcribed the most interesting thoughts! Got to think of some way to expedite these follow-up blogposts, but I think as long as the character section is not only desired but probably the main draw, these big delays are inevitable. Still, I hope you enjoyed, I of course had my worries the Brawl might flounder this year, but the day of it is so invigorating to see you all enjoy it and be reminded that the thought and imagination I try to put in it does pay off! Ta ta!
