LET THERE BE REJECTS!

The trend of posting your rejected character ideas has returned, and with it, comes my contribution to the scrap heap. Here are all the characters I currently remember having once considered and decided against.

LAMP
Origin: OC
Year: ???
Let's start with something nice, simple, and utterly horrifying!

Your eyes do not deceive you. It is just a Lamp. Of course, it would be a talking lamp, and one capable of movement, but why RP a Lamp?

When I was a young warthog, Rainbow Dash and I would play with her Barbies together, but I didn't use the dolls. See, she had a big dreamhouse playset and with it, the accoutrements and furniture in it. So, young Jumpropeman decided to go full Beauty and the Beast and RPed the accessories. The sofa, wardrobe, bed, hairbushes, everything was alive and could talk, although there was no real reason behind it. Just a way for us to play together and I could be interested in what I was doing. They probably did banal things, but I remember the Lamp because he was basically my main character. He was light blue lamp with a white lampshade that did not look too different from this picture, although I've looked for the actual toy online and found nothing. The lampshade was on a ball pivot so you could move it around easily, and it was something I could fidget with during downtime or move to make it look like the lamp was alive and talking or emoting.

So, how would I have integrated this into RP? This fun Lamp character I remember from my childhood?

Well, there would be a mansion out somewhere, where all the stuff is alive! A lady lives there, but one day her Lamp heads out in search of help. The Lamp would meet the Kobbers and probably make sure they were up to scratch and might be able to help the lady at the mansion, and then, he'd take them there.

The house, once vibrant and beautiful, would be in disrepair, the living furniture only able to do so much. A lot of them would be nervous, quiet, or broken (sometimes literally), and Lamp would lead them to the dusty room where the lady of the house was. A barren room they had fashioned for her, stone walls and flooring and nothing in it save her. Not even lights. She would be naked, mumbling to herself and nearly starved, although it was by her own doing. See, this lady, heiress to the house, would have at first found the concept charming and enchanting, but then she realized the horrors of having a house where everything was alive. Sitting on a chair meant sitting on a living being, looking in a mirror, she was actually looking at something else alive. Her hairbrush was alive, her bed was alive, soon she couldn't trust anything. The shower, her clothes, the floor, the walls... everything could be alive, constantly looking at her, expecting her to interact or possibly judging her and nowhere she could go in the house was she able to escape the house, but she couldn't leave it either, since she feared the outside world as well, no longer believing anything could just be lifeless. Seeing waves of grass outside her door which she knew were alive didn't help her when she wanted to leave, so the furniture and all took pity on her and made her a room where she could feel as comfortable as possible.

She'd probably yell at the Kobbers for wearing clothes/holding objects and generally just be a frightened, miserable lady. And there's the reason we'll never see her. It's a lot to ask people to take on the rehabilitation of such a lady, and her situation was so sad and twisted that I'm not sure I'd want to expose people to it. I'm sure even just the description is pretty bad for some but I do like it when horror and things like that get involved in RP, I just don't know where we could have gone from there. I had no idea how we could fix her nor did I have a reason why everything in the house was alive save "ghosts maybe? Friendly ghosts but still ghosts?" I also wasn't sure what Lamp could do besides shine his bulb and talk, which doesn't an interesting character make. If I do ever revive this idea, it will probably be a short story or something instead outside of RP, and likely one with an unhappy open ending that will make people say OMG DECONSTRUCTION OF BEAUTY AND THE BEAST?!?! and I'd be like "no... no, just an idea I came up with that lines up with it. But sure, call it that if it makes me the casheesh!"

So that's what I would have done if I had roleplayed a lamp.

BOOHBAHS
Year: 2013/2014

I've always felt bad for Gooper Blooper.

He was prescient enough to RP a healer character in a world where characters routinely die or are badly injured. Oftentimes this meant Sarah was used like a medkit, where even when alternatives existed and were literally right there, people would still yank the white mage out of her home or dump a body on her lawn to get her to heal the person injured/dead. Helios returning and the development of the Medical Staff into a fullfledged bonafide "thing" may mean this'll never happen again, and Gooper will have less of a burden since we can say "they go to the hospital" instead.

However, in 2013, the medical staff didn't exist, and my attempt to help Gooper would be introducing this bunch.

Boohbah is a fucking strange show. A bunch of multicolored furry orb babies bounce around and sometimes pull their heads into their bodies and never say anything but fly around in a glowing orb that calls out their name. It is a perfect show for babies because it seems like a baby wrote the incomprehensible show that these five are from. Boohbah is a good show to watch if you want to be utterly baffled and laugh at how strange everything is, and its really REALLY repetitive.

However, in RP, the idea was the Boohbahs would appear on the ZFS, sort of acting as one and not really talking or anything, just providing inexplicable assistance. Each different colored Boohbah had some sort of unique ability (in the show they're interchangeable) and one, maybe the yellow one (Humbah) was to be a new healer who would actively heal during plots. I do not recall any of the other considered abilities, but Jumbah, Zumbah, Jingbah and inexplicably named orange Boohbah Zing Zing Zingbah all would have skills that were a bit less directly violent. I bet the blue one (Jumbah) would have had water powers or something predictable.

As for why I was even inspired to use them, it was partly from the experience of laughing at the baffling show, but I also picked up a full set of the little dolls at a Dollar Store once, and even got a big pillow of Jumbah (the blue one) at Goodwill once. My niece loves the small ones and for the most part, they're just cute little puffballs. Of course, since this was pre-Deck JRM and these characters couldn't talk, I doubt anything would have come of them, and I had no idea where to go with them, so the Boohbahs got the boot.

DAN BACKSLIDE
Origin: Dover Boys
Year: 2015
DAN BACKSLIDE! I'LL RP HIM! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!

Yup, ol' Danny boy was rising up to prominence in the public mind before 2015 RP, and I briefly considered using him as a humorous villain who would mostly have his plots foiled as he interacted with the Kobbers. Sort of a Mr. Bixby but a villain sort, and he'd us his big book of answers as well and probably spout the memes that he's known for on occasion.  I think even after he got the boot he was considered for a blogpost to set some other characters up as a one-time villain, but got replaced when the idea with Hiker Anthony and Blajboa came. In another universe, she might've encountered Dan instead!

Still, nothing too solid ever formed for him to do, so Dan got slid back and eventually deemed lost.

THADDIUS
Origin: World of Warcraft
Year: 2015
I doubt I'll ever host a BBBP, but if I did, for quite a while I was hoping to get Cornwind on one so I could do Thaddius. We'd likely fight Fuegen and Stalagg first, his two undead servants who are controlling the machines tied to Thaddius. He was basically a big Frankenstein monster guy who had been added to Hearthstone through Fuegen and Stalagg's special effect in the Curse of Naxxramas expansion, and when I saw a Lore video about the fight with Thaddius and his cronies in WOW, I thought it would make a pretty cool BBBP that I'd want Cornwind along since he'd recognize it and maybe steer me a little if I went off-course from the boss battle. I don't remember much of what was in the fight now, but I'd probably rewatch the video as I posted it if it had even been a thing that was done.

UTHER LIGHTBRINGER
Origin: Hearthstone
Year: 2014 or onward
You might notice I saw Hearthstone instead of Warcraft, the series he debuted in.

That is intentional.

Whereas Thaddius would be mirroring his WOW battle, Uther was based on my desire to RP something Hearthstone related. A fun if casual digital card game, Hearthstone caught my imagination and I still like to follow up on it, even if I haven't played it in quite a while. The game has a lot of charm and character to it, and it doesn't take itself seriously and I don't take it seriously either. What is also interesting is how so many cards have lore behind them, and I can say now that even if I don't want to play WOW, I do like its lore and all.

I struggled for a while to see if I could represent Hearthstone in my RP, which will finally come into fruition in 2017 when I RP Harth Stonebrew, mostly because I finally figured out how to do it. Tuskarr Jouster is sort of the closest I got before and that was through Rainbow Dash's entrant, who I didn't really tie to Hearthstone much anyway besides "this is a character from it." Well, I like hammers, and in Hearthstone I liked playing Paladin quite a bit, and Uther seemed like a cool guy. The only problem was I didn't really know much beyond Uther's appearance and cards in the game, and it would be a disservice to RP him and not carry over some of his lore... but he's a major character and that would be a lot of baggage, and I didn't want to stomp on Cornwind, Spy, or Bree with a character from a series they like a lot that I might not do justice to even with a thorough wiki read! Harth will not likely be bringing any of the playable heroes from Hearthstone into RP, so Uther was given the axe long ago and is like to stay outside of RP unless the WOW fans bring him in.

GROKE
Origin: Moomins
Year: Who Knows
"Wherever she stands, the ground below her freezes and plants and grass die. She leaves a trace of ice and snow when she walks the ground. Anything that she touches will freeze. On one occasion, she froze a campfire by sitting down on it. She seeks friendship and warmth, but she is declined by everyone and everything, leaving her in her cold cavern on top of the Lonely Mountains."

Certainly an interesting if disruptive character in that she'd be freezing everything, the Groke was more appealing for being strange and creepy but really just a nice thing that doesn't know how to act nice. It wants warmth and friends but if it tries to get either it will freeze things instead. A bit tragic, and she would have likely had to learn to make friends from a distance or something, but initially she might have just lurked around, appearing at strange times and helping or accidentally hurting situations. The only problem is the idea she's not all that bad would be ruined by a google search., my most hated enemy! Again, I was more intrigued by this character's concept rather than fleshing out any ideas for the how and why, and I keep calling her Groak mentally, which is the word for "staring at someone silently in the hopes that they will invite you to eat with them." She'd certainly do a lot of creepy staring if she was RPed, but she'll have to stay in the Lonely Mountains even longer now.

ICE CLIMBERS
Origin: Super Smash Bros because let's be serious, their original game is kind of bad.
Year: 2016 or onward

Poor Ice Climbers. Poor, poor Ice Climbers. I love Smash Bros when it elevates characters like these since I'm huge on the old and obscure. I even mentioned these guys in the previous blogpost! I've got a softspot in my heart for these two innocent Eskimos,  partly because of them being my brother's preferred character in Melee and Brawl, as well as him doing a funny word-swap version of an Ice Climbers review that has given me phrases like "lofty tally" and "hoarfrost mountaineers" that I use on occasion. Keep in mind: the Jingle Specter aka what would become Jumpropeman also came from a synonym swap except of F-Zero stuff instead.

Anyway, after the Smash 4 snub and Sakurai actually saying "we didn't put them in the Wii U game because they didn't work in the 3DS", it broke my heart on my brother's behalf. I was so worried when they weren't being revealed and it sucks when you are robbed of a character you've been working on for a decade. Plus, despite being from a bad game, Smash feels like a series where you don't need to trim characters too much, and they were unique and fun!

To carry the torch for these departed hoarfrost mountaineers, I considered bringing them into RP, possibly as secondary goofballs. We'd probably see the brother and sister relationship as they helped each other out, but I never figured out personalities beyond relying a lot on each other and perhaps having that bond tested. I like ice powers too so they wouldn't have been a bad fit. With Cirno in the pipeline of course its not like I am lacking in the power side, and again, the hammer crops up, but Yotam just got through with his run of using a sledge. Besides just making sure people didn't forget this cute happy duo, there seemed to be nothing left to do for them. Sorry Nana and Popo, I know it hurts to be cut from a roster again...

MAREANN
Origin: Question Quest
Year: 2016 or onward
The picture is actually from Legend I think and the girl is probably too old to be MareAnn and too Princessy, but there does not seem to exist an actual picture of the girl. Like, not even a bad fanart of her anywhere. Not even sure if the hair color is right.

SO! Question Quest was a birthday gift or christmas maybe that Ven gave me one year, and back then I was pretty bad at reading books as there were other things I could do, but at my job, the time to read was open, and I finally dug into Piers Anthony story of the magician Humfrey's origins... not that I knew who the wizard or Piers Anthony were particularly. A world full of fun puns and interesting fantasy styles, it was a good read if a bit weird at parts, but early on Humfrey meets a girl in the woods named MareAnn, with the simple power of being able to summon horses. She was a fun character but even though Humfrey was smitten, MareAnn was not willing to be with him since if she was made impure, she would no longer be able to summon unicorns. Sort of a continuation of Edyth and the Invisible Pink Unicorn in ways but with a different personality and access to more horses, some of the desire drained as I gave Ingrid a mount and thought up more interesting powers. Still, MareAnn could have been interesting, just not as interesting as those who would replace her. Plus she's like probably 14 unless I age her up and I wasn't really sure what her character motivations would be at either age besides call up some horses!

NAMINGWAY
Origin: Final Fantasy 4
Year: Who Knows
A peculiar character from Final Fantasy 4 who appears throughout the game purely for the purpose of changing your party member names if you so wish it. The remakes have made him more and more of a bunny despite his original sprite being a humanoid mix of rabbit and man, and it kind of demystified this unusual man who existed for such a banal purpose. The man's obscurity and weird purpose appealed to me and only as I investigated did I find the terrible reinterpretation of him as a cute bunny, as his original sprite looked so strange and more like the image I show here. He might have been able to draw power from names, or alter objects by changing their names, or some sort of tricky interpretation of being able to change names to make him sort of like Broderick but with names and more inflicting his powers on others. The image's expression is probably what his personality would convey, a guy who thinks his work is super important and serious who will gradually learn that no one actually cares, although he would have gone gaga over people like Lightwing or Dawn who love to change names! I almost think he is the most likely to be rescued from her, or alternatively, have the power ideas and personality shifted to an OC.

RED
Origin: Twitch Plays Pokemon
Year: 2014 or onward
Twitch Plays Pokemon was insane. Such an awesome and unique idea, and I'm so glad I got to be there for it. I lost sleep because I had to stay up during the Pokemon Red run and watch us evolve the Fonz into a Nidoking. The impromptu lore that wasn't as forced as some later Twitch Plays games got to when they dropped to less than a thousand players. The fans, the songs, the art, arguing that it should always be anarchy because Democracy sucked! It's a once in a lifetime experience and I immersed myself in it, perhaps to my detriment. I was there when we beat the elite four, I sent out all sorts of commands! Most importantly voting to keep anarchy. Much like Hearthstone, it was something I liked a whole lot so I considered trying to rope it into RP, but I faced some roadblocks.

I wanted it to be Red from Twitch Plays Pokemon, with voices in his head and everything. The voices? Well, you guys! The other RPers! All his actions would literally be anything suggested in order, but then you get down to how much that would annoy people to keep up and perhaps people would either abuse it or potentially, play it too boring and safe. Without the ability to ask people to be his voice, I considered maybe tractoring literally everything or what would become Jasper's tractor of "a list of potential actions picked by chatzy", but it didn't ever come together. I also was afraid of the VGCW jokes coming for Red since Proto Man basically got bullied out of RP by them and Red was a whole lot more significant over there. I still thought it would be cool to get TPP into RP somehow... and hence why I am pretty excited when I saw the Helix Fossil in Gooper's plot teaser! No matter what he does with it, I wish him good luck, and I know it will probably be better than what I tried to cobble together in my excitement at the concept.

 

SODA POPINSKI

Year: 2013/ 2014/ 2015/ 2016/ 2017

Talk about a guy on the backburner! Soda has almost always been on the "potentially RP" list until the day SK posted Pit bemoaning the Punch-Out crew and basically setting their RP personalities in stone. While I had a lot of fun ideas for Soda, I was beaten to the punch for waiting too long, so now he finally makes his appearance here after me always saying "next year".

Much like trying to make sense of Dr. Games/Professor Playor, why Professor Hector would sleepwalk so much and be so hard to wake, and other things in my RP that explain things that otherwise in their source material are ignored, done for practical reasons, or can be easily explained in a meta aspect (censoring, regional change, etc.), Soda was a pet project of explaining the man who was once Vodka Drunkenski and is now Soda Popinski. 

Back in his early boxing days, he was just a tough Russian with a respectable name. Something like Yuri (even though that in itself is a joke of how I think Yuri is a funny name considering its Japanese meaning :V), but as he got bigger, he was known for bringing booze into the ring and soon even drinking it during, getting a bit of a Drunken Master reputation and people theorizing he felt no pain as long as his belly was full of Vodka. He was beginning to make it big, getting money, family, fame... but the Vodka Drunkenski name came as he started squandering it, feeding a alcohol problem with his fortune and losing his family and reputation. People still thought he was tough, but he had a problem, one that he fixed...

And was ridiculed for fixing. He was still strong in the ring, even better than before, but he had switched to soda to serve as his way of transitioning away from booze, and people began to jokingly call him Soda Popinski, a name he tried to embrace as part of his recovery... only to need to bring the soda pop into the ring like he had his vodka to prevent himself from drinking booze instead. Everyone said he was weak now, even as he won match after match, and losing to Little Mac from the Bronx wouldn't have helped his ego much either. We'd find a post Punch-Out Soda coming into the bar to get his soda fix, routinely tempted by the alcohol on offer but making a point of sticking to his soda despite being so close to temptation as a self-imposed hurdle to try and put his past completely behind him and try and rebuild his life, reputation, and career.

It would have come to a head when Drown Yer' Mates came around for the year, and he'd have a crisis outside of the event itself as the temptation pushed him to his limits. The Kobber interaction and his progress in life would be judged here, and he would have both a good or bad end from here, and he might even finished the year neither Vodka or Soda. He would be Yuri again, and no longer defined by any drink.

As you can tell, I basically had him all figured out! He would have been a hard hitter in RP battles and his soda would give him or other buffs more as a motivator rather than anything special in it, and despite the common internet joke, he'd never spike it or replace it with booze unless he was falling off the wagon from bad interactions with other characters. He might even have fought the Kobbers if he had been pushed too far down the old road of alcoholism. It was mostly trying to make room for him in the roster and trying to make sure the alcoholism recovery story as real and sensitive as possible that lead me to drag my feet, and then I saw I was too late. Probably good to have certain ideas killed, or else you'll keep fretting how and when to do it and thinking of the possibilities rather than the much more concrete missed opportunities. 

MARTHA
Origin: OC
Year: 2015 or onward
Was never really happy with the name Martha, nor was I really committed to the image I found for her. Would have likely done a name investigation and drawn her, especially since there is no way I'd find a drawing of what you will shortly discover she is.

Sometimes I like to take stock of RP and see what we are missing. This might partly contribute to my desire to RP normal, average people and old people, or characters with incredibly weird biology, but rarely is it ever the reason I RP a character and more so perhaps a subconscious guide to innovate and think outside the norm. RP, unsurprisingly, is lacking in the middle aged woman department, with perhaps only Celestia in it. Even more, if there were others, they likely aren't realistic versions of a woman of that age, and certainly not an individual without extreme powers or something else.

Martha was to be a large late forties lady, but she was going to be strong too, especially since her weapon was a coffin.

A coffin on a long chain.

Martha would be dragging a coffin with her wherever she went, something I realized might have been accidentally inspired by the old Django movie where the character used it to drag a giant gun around. The idea was Martha was ready to die, so she brought her coffin around with her to bury herself should she die in battle, and she'd be likely to die only once, teetering on permadeath as she was always ready to go. Tough but also friendly and quick to protect the young folks, it wouldn't be surprising if she got in over her head and died pointlessly, but it was a one and done deal. She would keep things in her coffin, using it almost like a backpack, and I waffled if it would just be supplies, whether there would be weapons in there, or even perhaps her dead husband so they could be joined in their eternal sleep when she did go. I also thought maybe she'd put some of her dead opponents in there or pieces of them, although I imagine many people would be touchy about taking pieces of their dead villains even if they were just to drag around as morbid trophies.

Despite using the coffin as a crazy flail/club and the mindset of the lady, I never got to the point I wanted to RP her enough to draw her, and she got put in the recycle bin. Doubtful we'll see a lady like her, but some assets may be reused. But not the name, or the picture. That was just me making sure I didn't forget the idea really, and I have no idea what she would have actually been called if she made it in RP, and my image for her would probably look a bit more mischievous or cocky than a smiling normal lady. And yes, she would have been a normal lady, just really strong, and she would actually struggle with the coffin weapon on pretty much any low roll because of it.

And there you go! Another batch confined to the prison of the blog! We'll see who joins them next time the Reject Jail opens admissions once again.