Cutting Room Floor 2023 (part 2)

 Cancelled Plot: The Shadow of Evil

• This was a secondary plot to be run alongside and complementary to One World, One Ocean. It would have served as a final wrapup for Ultraman Trigger's story and been an alternative end for Cleve Sharpe as a villain.
• The idea was, instead of Rahab, the merfolk would have worshipped Ghatanothoa, the final boss monster and true villain of Ultraman Tiga. Ghatanothoa was the insane spawn of Cthulhu and the dark god that the Giants of Darkness, with Trigger's unwitting help, reawakened to destroy the original Ultra civilization of Agama and claim dominion. They were foiled by Tiga, Trigger's father, who destroyed Ghatanothoa's physical form at the cost of his own life, but a Shadow, the disembodied intelligence of the monster, remained in the spot where he was killed - the oceans off the coast of Whalestrand.
• As One World, One Ocean progressed, signs that all was not well would make themselves apparent. Giant monsters would rise out of the ocean and into the city, neccesitating the Kobbers pull out their big guns to drive them away or kill them. Dark visions would afflict many of the populace - Valério and Trigger most of all. The merfolk would, in fact, be praying to Ghatanothoa - either the captive merfolk or the outsider pod would be responsible.
• It would also transpire that the pearl of Sharpe's collection was an artefact he'd ignoranrly dubbed the Eternity Core. It was, in fact, Ghatanothoa's heart, sundered from his body when Tiga sacrificed himself to destroy the evil god. Through the Eternity Core, Ghatanothoa would influence many monsters and villains through the Whalestrand season.
• By the climax of the story, Sharpe would attempt to escape by boat, taking the Eternity Core with him. Passing over the Shadow as he sailed, Sharpe's body would be hijacked by the Eternity Core, with the Shadow taking control of this new form. This humanoid form of Ghatanothoa, dubbed Megalothoa, would turn its insane wrath upon Whalestrand, seeking to restart its dark conquest of Earth, but would be destroyed for good by Ultraman Trigger and the Kobbers.
• In truth, the more I thought about this, the less enthused I was for it. In my mind, Trigger's story was done. He'd already faced his demons several times in the Agama years and there wasn't really any more I could drag out from him. Having him face the original monster that bested him and killed his father might have been an interesting angle to attack his character, recalling Agony's words about how futile the Ultranian species' battle against evil seemed to be on the surface. But I didn't really fancy going through what I felt was the same motions over and over from those years. Trigger had been through enough trauma, in my mind. It was time to let the boy rest and enjoy his hard-won peace.

Cancelled Storyline: The Other Vent

• This one's... weird. It came about shortly after I decided to have Sharpe send an assassn after Vent. I'd been musing on Vilfred's attraction to Vent at the time, because while I was fully aware that it could only end badly, I didn't really... want it to end badly, per se? The way Aqualand plot was shaping up at the time, I felt that the inevitable conclusion was that poor Vilf would be out of a job due to Sharpe firing him - which technically did happen, if you count a Stand punch to the jaw as a firing notice. So I wanted to give the poor guy some form of happy ending.
• The general idea was that Vent would end up having his own Easter, of sorts. But while Easter's development was due to convoluted multiverse stuff I still don't understand, Vent's was... a different matter. The plan was, following the assassination attempt, Vent would begin constructing a backup body in case something like that happened again. While he's normally against making backups of himself, as he sees it as making light of the experience of living, he would soon realize that, on a practical level, it would be a neccesary evil.
• Unfortunately, something would happen to the backup body. That was all I had down in my mind - something would happen. Either it would be stolen, or something would go wrong when Vent tried to download himself into it. The end result was that the body would go walkabout in some fashion. The Kobbers would have to track it down and recover it. Beyond these steps, I didn't really have any idea for what would come in the middle, although thinking about it now some ideas begin to take shape.
• Whatever the intervening steps, the end result was the creation of a 'second' Vent, seperate from the original. Bearing some of Vent's memories, but having a personality closer to the canon Mega Man ZX version of the character. He would use the MEGA system from that game as well, and would eventually hook up with Vilfred as a sort of apology for the original Vent putting him through all the trouble of facing up against Sharpe.
• This new Vent would have also needed a new name to differentiate himself. I was thinking either 'Thomas', meaning 'twin', or Valentine. Because Easter.
  
  ...actually, 'Valentine Twain Cosine' does sound like a JoJo name.
• If you noticed that this looks like me trying to have my cake and eat it, then congratulations, you've figured out why I dropped this! I ruminated on this idea for a month, including up to and after Vent's actual assassination and the battle with Tomas 'Smoke' Vrbada. But at that point I was starting to get turned off by the whole 'Vilfred's hot for Vent' thing, which I suspected was starting to raise eybrows. and I knew that me trying to pull this off would definitely raise some eyebrows. So I quietly shelved the idea and never made any hints or steps towards it.
• On a side note, I considered Kamen Rider Shinobi instead of Smoke as Vent's assassin. But then Mortal Kombat 1 was announced, and... well, there it is!

Cancelled Plot: Tall Tales

• This one actually came about during the second Agama season. I hung onto it for the entire year to see how I felt when the Whalestrand season came around, but decided to drop it in the end as I'd completely lost interest and it didn't really seem fitting for the setting.
• The plot would revolve around characters who were descendants of figures from American folklore and tall tales, banding together as a sort of motely crew united by their shared heritage. The crew would consist of:
• Captain Jennifer Stormalong. A talented sailor and able to communicate with sea life. She was the leader of the group and spoke in a sterotypical Boston patois.
• Peter Bunyan. A quiet and mild-mannered young man, only seven or eight feet tall compared to his giant of an ancestor. Very strong and good with an axe.
• Jolyne Magarac. Able to turn her skin into solid iron and heat up her body. Loud and scrappy.
• Ronnie Appleseed. Lover of nature, but not in a spaced-out granola guy way. Could control plants. Was probably in a relationship with Peter.
• 'Eagle-Eye' William The direct descendant of Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue. Owned a magic lasso which could tame anything. The only sane member of the group.
• The entire conceit of their story was Jennifer assembling her crew in a bid to try and find adventures comparable to their ancestors and write their name in the history books. But in the modern world, even with the kind of strange things that Kobbers face, there just simply isn't enough untamed wilderness and fearsome critters for the kind of impossible feats that Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill etc. But Jennifer would keep dragging her crew into more and more dangerous adventures in a bid to make a name for herself.
• Eventually, the other members of the crew would turn on Jennifer and tell her to stop living in the past and that the world has no more room for big folkloric heroes like themselves. Crushed and full of injured pride, Jennifer would steal Eagle-Eye's lasso and try to prove them wrong by fighting a dangerous monster on her own, eventually becoming the villain through her bllody-minded determination to become a legend. 

Cancelled Plot: The Ocean Hunter

•  I don't want to give too much away about this one. Basically, if you ever heard me talk about that old light gun game The Ocean Hunter, the general premise was similar to that. The Kobbers would help the main characters of that game protect Whalestrand from the Six Great Monsters attacking ships and shore:
• Kraken, a giant octopus
• Leviathan, a megalodon
• Charybdis, a giant anglerfish
• Karkinos, a giant and highly agressive crab,
• Ahuizotl, an elamosaurus
• Midgardsorm, a huge worm. This thing's boss battle would involve it swallowing the Kobbers, nd you'd have to journey through its body cavity and fight its sentient heart.
• There would be character development between the lead characters, of course. Chris, the Player 2 character, would grow resentful of Torel, the Player 1 character, for hogging all the spotlight and treating ocean hunting like a game. Perhaps Chris would have been the one becoming Kamen Rider Poseidon...
• Mini bosses from the game would have made appearances, too. Naga, Vlitra and Kaliyah the oarfish would have shown up, as would the shark triplets Kerberos, the giant jellyfish Medusa and Umi-Bozu the octopus.
• I don't wanna spoil too much, but... I didn't pick the name Rahab out of a hat. You'll just have to sit and wait for 2024 to find out more on that account.
  

Cutting Room Floor: One World, One Ocean (2023)

The following is a list of stuff that got cut from my 2023 plot. To spare myself from doing huge reams of text, for the sake of my own sanity, I'm trying to condense this into a bulleted list. Any further questions will be answered in the comments. Note that some of this may be reworked into plots for next year, depending on my mood - I won't say which, but you'll know which ones it'll be when/if I do them.

Rejected Plot: The Last Cult

• My initial plot idea for this season was in direct reference to Gorillaz' new album, Cracker Island. Essentially, a book called "The Book of MAN" would appear in stores around Whalestrand, with people who'd read it acting oddly as a result. In turn, strange events would happen on an offshore island called Cracker Island, prompting Kobber investigation.
• It would be revealed almost immediately that Murdoc and the rest of Gorillaz were starting 'The Last Cult' on Cracker Island as a means of spreading the band's (well, Murdoc's) personal philosophy and to promote their upcoming album. Unfortunately, their efforts would face a pincer attack of complications - the actions of the Forever Cult next door and Russel's upcoming predictions of 'The Rupture', an apocalyptic event.
• The Book of MAN would also be revealed to be an acronym - Book of Murdoc Alphonce Niccals.
  
• By this time, the characters would be much older and match their current incarnations.
• Noodle and Stephen would have broken up due to the latter not being able to handle the reality of dating a member of a highly popular and scrutinized band, with Murdoc's decision to start a cult being the straw that broke the camel's back. As a result, she would be much more dour and less talkative than usual.
•  2D would have started getting a big head due to being named the 'Chosen One' of the Last Cult, slipping into something closer to his more arrogant Demon Days persona. He would have gotten quite friendly with the female leader of the Forever Cult next door - a bad decision.
• Russel would have essentially become a non-entity due to being completely whacked out from staring into TV static trying to divine the secrets of the universe. Maybe the Kobbers could have scooped him. He would have been running around in the background trying to prepare for the 'Rupture'.
  
• Murdoc would still be Murdoc, obviously.
  
• Scenes planned include: Visiting Murdoc during a mass of the Last Cult, Murdoc trying to pitch his 'Essence of Murdoc' bathwater at people and rescuring 2D from the Forever Cult, who would turn out to be the actual villains.
• By the end, Stephen would have returned and reconciled with Noodle, although wherever they would rekindle their relationship was up in the air. Murdoc, rather than bailing and leaving his band to get arrested, would take the blame. The Last Cult would be disbanded and all copies of the Book of MAN recalled and destroyed. The Rupture would turn out to be nothing at all since Russel read the clues wrong, disappointing him but snapping him out of his trance. The album would be a success, however. And maybe a Smirnoff cocktail party would follow.
  
• The ultimate lesson of the plot would be 'Utopia is what U make it'. Tomorrow comes today and it's the same as yesterday. So rather than chasing the impossible, work hard now with what you have so that tomorrow can be a little better. Also, don't drink Essence of Murdoc.

I dropped this plot because I realized there really wasn't anything going on with it. There weren't really any things for Kobbers to do that I could think of, besides investigating and possibly a battle with the Forever Cult. It wasn't so much a plot as it was a series of happenings, and there wasn't much reason for Kobbers to get involved in any way outside of a final battle. Also, I didn't feel comfortable writing stuff involving a cult, or subjecting people to the unhappy revelation of Stephen and Noodle breaking up.

Plot Events Overall

• There were plans made for if any of the Kobbers decided infiltrating Sharpe Manor was in order. It would have been revealed that Sharpe would have had a bunch of supernatural security to keep his mansion safe, including a pet that had a Stand akin to Pet Shop from JoJo. Any Kobber infiltrating this mansion would have faced this pet.
• More artefacts from Sharpe would have been present or made appearances. 
• Plans were drawn up to include the Ruinous Quartet from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, who would have been artefacts bought by Sharpe for his collection and would be awakened by Sharpe's ever increasing greed, needing to be captured or subdued.
• The mezzotint is a reference to the M. R. James story, and at one point there would be an actual event where somebody got trapped inside it with the ghost and needed to be rescued.
• Other artefacts from M. R. James stories planned to appear include the whistle from O, Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad, the papers of Canon Alberic, the wood carving from The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral and the cursed crown from A Warning To The Curious. I was in an M. R. James mood during that time period :P
  
• The ghost of the Beast of Gévaudan would have stalked the grounds and become an obstacle for the Kobbers to fight.
• Stand Arrows, Majora's Mask, a piece of a Dalek and various Sentai/Rider artefacts were planned to appear.
  
• Following the Brawl, the plan was to have another pod of Merfolk make their appearance. Led by the son of Boreal aka Heartful One, this pod would have been highly aggressive and distrustful of humans, becoming a secondary antagonist alongside Sharpe as they tried to influence humans into releasing the Merfolk inside Aqualand. The Kobbers would have had to face them in order to prove that they could be trusted.
• Rahab was going to be a much bigger presence in this plot, possibly tied to the second Merfolk pod, but with the focus shifting towards Sharpe as the main villain, this couldn't be worked in.
• The second part of the Mermaid Rescue was going to be much different. It would have been an actual raid on Aqualand and not a different facility. Knaggs would have played a vital role, and it would have ended with one of the Merfolk dying due to Knaggs' actions. This would have infuenced Vilfred's character development, briefly shattering him but increasing his resolve to fight Sharpe.
• I was planning to use a lot more music from Endless Ocean. Unfortunately, I listened to a whole bunch of it, which made me realize that, as fitting as it was, I didn't like a single instance of it. So I stopped using it after the one moment.

Heroes

• Vilfred and Vent's first meeting was planned to be slightly different. Vent would have startled Vilf into falling into the tank, wherupon Vent would try to fish him out, only to fall in. Both would be rescued by Blue, establishing that, unlike the other captive merfolk, she was recognizing the potential good in humans.
• Speaking of, Vilfred's attraction towards Vent would have spanned the entire season and formed a major crutch of his character development. His idolization of Vent as a model Kobber, while played for laughs at first, would have eventualy started to affect his judgement as he went out of his way to try and impress his new mentor, not knowing about Vent's own marital situation despite idolizing him. There might have even been a moment where Vilfred impulsively kissed Vent, causing their working relationship to crack a bit and leaving Vilfred wracked with guilt enough for Sharpe and/or Knaggs to get the drop on him. I pulled back on this entire thing and ended it prematurely because I was starting to get the nagging sensation that people would think the entire thing was weird and kinda creepy.
• On the other hand, the plot was originally heaving much harder towards Vilfred and Blue having an attraction to each other, with a scene planned where the two of them, ah... re-enacted The Shape of Water, if you get my drift. If I had gone through with my plans of offing Blue, it would have left Vilfred heartbroken and driven by vengeance, which leads to...
• Vilfred was originally intended to have the ability to completely understand Merfolk language, which I hinted at early in the beginning. As a result, he would have have nightmares of Rahab's approach as he heard the despairing cries of the Merfolk. This would culminate in Rahab trying to influence Vilfred to take vengeance for the suffering of the trapped merfolk, which would eventually manifest as Vilfred becoming an actual Kamen Rider - Kamen Rider Poseidon, controlled by Rahab's will.
• Of course, none of that went in because there was literally no time anymore and the focus was now completely on Sharpe as a villain. Not to say that the threat of Rahab is gone, however...
  
• Grey was planned to be a lot more anti-heroic, threatening staff members and actively killing one. I dropped this one like a hot potato because it was too close to the plot's overall inspiration.
• Kaydence's character development would have taken a lot longer than what it turned out. She would have dropped training with Julia when it became too hard and, following the Brawl, would have tried to use martial arts braindances and other VR sims to cheat her way into becoming stronger. This would have developed into an addiction, which would then spiral into actual cyberpsychosis that needed a healthy dose of Kobber fist to shake her out of it.
  
  As you all saw, I began to regret sending Kaydence into the Suspense when I did because then it looked like I was skipping too much of her character development, that she hadn't had the time to show off what she could do on her own and that the opportunity for stuff like this would be lost. Of course, that's all been worked out and I'm generally okay with what I have now, but I still kind of regret not going through with it to begin with and I wish I'd taken more time on her development. That said, nobody's perfect - people do backslide into bad habits and ideas sometimes...
  

Villains

• Sharpe being descended from DIO was a last-minute addition. He was intended to originally be just a human, albeit with good fighting skills as a Bartitsu/cane fighting practitioner. He would have also interacted with the Kobbers in public more, trying to win them over by being his usual smarmy self.
  
• Knaggs was going to be involved a lot more in the plot, being much more of a backstabbing prick than he ended up being. In the final raid on Aqualand, he would have shown up and, identifying that Vilfred had feelings for Blue, would have held her hostage and threatened to kill her and/or the entireity of the Merfolk population unless the Kobbers backed off. The ensuing scuffle would have killed Knaggs, but also resulted in one of the Merfolk (possibly Blue or Grey) dying.
• The Jyamato were thrown in to give Del something to do with his Geats Riders. Needless to say, it didn't work out :P
• There would have been more to do with the Cyberpsychoes and a bigger examination of what causes the condition. Kaydence would ultimately admit that becoming a cyberpsycho is one of her greatest fears - she's terrified of the idea of not being in control of her mind, having already endured living in a world where she had little control of her own life.
• I was gonna have a brief moment where Arktos, the villain from the German film Tabaluga, showed up as a one-off fight solely because he was voiced by Benedict Campbell, aka King K. Rool. I didn't go through with it because I imagined the responses would have been a collective "Wait, who?"