The Character Corner: Blitz, Part 2

"Mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?" 

(You are king, you are. 😆)

(There was a person named Loo who'd come through every now and then to comment on posts both here early on and at the old blog. Loo, if you happen to be reading this, you seem to be a Blitz fan like myself, so I hope you've been enjoying my write-up on the character!)

INSPIRATION

Primarily me, myself, and I. 😋 To be frank I find most Blitz fans' headcanons about him (which are pretty rare to see anyways; people don't really bother trying to dig into his character any) to not be my cup of tea, to politely put it. Not interested in giving him an abusive dad; for some reason for this type of character, people love giving them an abusive parent(s). At this point I just find it tired and trite. Fans never do this to the popular characters. I will say Evil Writer had a couple of ideas for his backstory that I really like, but ended up putting my own particular twist on because I don't have all the details for how a certain event would actually go down in his setting, and deciding that I really don't want to be restrained by another person's headcanon. Lilikoi, another former Road Rovers crossover fan writer, also had a few ideas that I like and borrowed for my interpretation of Blitz.

He's yet another Rover who's just one big question mark. Aside from a couple of very surface-level minor things in the show (that are more jokes than anything else), we learn absolutely nothing about him either. He used to be a guard dog at a junkyard (?) in Berlin, Germany. That's literally all we were shown. That mysteriousness gets me a lot more interested in exploring what his past could've been like before he became a Road Rover, and how that past still could affect him in the present day.

I've seen a tiny handful of people create relatives for him, but have never really liked any of them due to their being given really stupid names for some reason, or, like I said above, it was just the played out abusive daddy trope or something in that vein. Most of them were incidental characters as well I believe. Either that, or I just don't know anything about them beyond them having names I dislike. So I just made up my own family members for him. Evil Writer also created an OC who was an adopted brother for Blitz, but I'm trying to decide if he should debut in the first generation stories or show up in the next gen stuff that I have planned.

FUTURE PLANS

Oh, so, so many.

After having written the first half of this character write-up, I feel confident in stating that I have finalized what I'll be doing with Blitz's love life. It'll be controversial, and for now I'm keeping mum about it.

I find it kind of interesting how in "Gold And Retrievers" Blitz was pretty dismissive towards the idea of Luca saying that he sees the future. And it's like "But you've seen werewolves before my guy." I think this is an interesting idea for his character: just being very cynical towards the idea of the supernatural (in general however I just feel he's someone of a pretty cynical nature). In my setting, the STARS-verse, there are other, very blatantly supernatural elements, in addition to werewolves and prophetic dreams like what Luca has, and I do intend to have Blitz have his worldview be challenged by the existence of these things. Which ties into my next point (sort of):

So what's going to be the catalyst for Blitz's beginning to turn over a new leaf and start becoming a more mature, reflective person here? Well, let's just say he gets by with a little help from from a (new) friend. Again, I'm not going to go into detail about this until I actually start working on the fic featuring this plot development as well as said new character, which'll be after my current on-going story New Dogs, New Tricks. It's working title is Straying Stars.

This new connection will give Blitz's character the opportunity to go to entirely new places and do amazing stuff that he'd never get to do in canon. Again, not just the self-improvement stuff, but other things that I'm going to hold off on discussing for now.

But I believe introducing OCs who could have interactions with Blitz that aren't constantly antagonistic in nature is something that could be used to further expand upon his character.

All of the following ideas are ones EW told me he had in mind, but were never actually written up and posted anywhere or anything. I think they're really awesome, so my intent is to take them and put my own spin on them for the STARS-verse. Now, let me state this upfront due to the dA branch of the Road Rovers fandom's lack of knowledge and awareness concerning anything outside their own echo chambers -- this is a very common practice within fandoms outside of Road Rovers. It is fine and dandy just as long as you credit the originator of the ideas. I am not "plagiarizing" anybody because all I was ever told about was a blurb about these ideas. 

Anyways, speaking of antagonism, there are going to be at least two stories focusing on his and Colleen's relationship. Will they ever quash their beef? Well, just stick around and see. One of these fics will be about Blitz just suddenly up and vanishing one day after walking into HQ not just looking but also acting strangely. It'll have a noire-ish tone to it. 

In another story, after ending up in a scrape and getting a little knock on the head, Blitz develops amnesia and runs afoul of a villain who convinces him that the Rovers are really bad guys -- and it's Blitz's job to stop them.

He's also going to be encountering somebody who gradually becomes an archenemy of his -- somebody he's actually met before. Though since I don't want to make this situation a retread of what happened with Exile and his own personal nemesis Hacker (who I mentioned all the way back in Exile's Character Corner write-up), it's going to be handled differently.

HEADCANON 

Before we start, I need to lay out yet more important info for Road Rover fans who might be wondering what a headcanon is. This is taken from Merriam-Webster's dictionary: "headcanon is something that a fan imagines to be true about a character, even though no information supporting that belief is spelled out in the text." 

So basically it's just theorizing for fun.

1.) Firstly, I do not perceive him to be some sort of brutish monster who doesn't care about the welfare or wellbeing of other creatures. Yeah, he may not automatically consider everybody else's feelings from the word go, but he has swallowed his pride and apologized for being wrong in the show twice ("Storm On The Pacific", and I wanna say another episode IIRC...). Again, if he was all these awful things, then why was he chosen to be a Rover in the first place, and why would he keep on doing it? Wouldn't he just quit? Or just go join the villains?

Make it make sense, haters.

2.) At the start of my storyverse, Blitz is a ripe old nineteen in human years. Initially he was a year older then Hunter because I was using the ages that EW gave them in his setting, but then I thought "Let's have the both of them swap ages." Then "Let's drop Blitz's age!", just because nineteen-year olds tend to be pretty stupid and dickish. That's all Blitz's issue is. He's not the Antichrist or Hitler reincarnated like people would have you believe. In universe, a lot of people are surprised that he's actually as young as he is. 

"Really?" I can hear you say incredulously. "He's pretty big for a nineteen year old!"

Brother/sister, have you seen some of these high school-age kids out here? Some of them look like they work 9 to 5s and own their own houses. 

So most of his immaturity I simply chalk up to his youth. Larger dog breeds also take longer to fully mature compared to smaller ones. The older he gets, the more he calms down. Viewing his behavior in the show through the lens of a young dog trying to push boundaries and test his limits and the older dogs getting irritated with him as a result is not only interesting, but lines up with actual dog behavior. My making him the youngest of the canon Rovers also factors into his feelings towards Hunter, who I have as being a whole six years older than Blitz. This mutt from Burgerland sitting up here and bossing him around like he's his dad or something would definitely stick in Blitz's craw. XD

3.) I think a lot of the guys in this fandom maybe either don't have or aren't familiar with the types of friendships that average guys (read: not, well, super-dorky or solitary types) have with one another. Men love to give other men crap. I've seen numerous posts and comments from men saying that that's how they show affection towards each other, believe it or not. I've witnessed this in real life. So that's why I don't think Exile hates Blitz or vice versa. He just likes busting his balls. In my ficverse I have Blitz busting his balls right back, because again, if he's also engaging in this, then it feels less one-sided.

"Well, that's actually called bullying, you know!"

Listen, I'm not a guy. All I'm doing is just pointing out that this is something men actually do. I am not saying it's right or wrong either way. It's just a thing. It felt right for my approach to Blitz and Exile's dynamic, so I use it.

Hmm... you're looking a little flushed there, dear reader. Maybe you should go get yourself a cool glass of water?

4.) I will emphasize this again: Blitz is not sexist or hates women. There’s absolutely nothing in the show pointing to that. It’s just stupid fanon. It's hella weird when people turn him into Frollo from the Disney Hunchback Of Notre Dame movie and have him be sexually obsessed with Colleen. I feel like if stuff ever got to that extreme with him, then he'd either go to the Master and talk to him about it, or just take it upon himself to find a girlfriend back home or something. It just seems like a bunch of people out there project their strange personal issues and fantasies onto these characters (then shamelessly advertise it to you because they see you also are interested in the show. Stop it, please 😒).

5.) Yeah, so Blitz is not a bully. When I think of bullies in fiction, I think of characters like Jimbo Jones from The Simpsons, or Katsuki Bakugo in My Hero Academia before his character undergoes development, or Regina George (Mean Girls). I don't believe the couple of times that Blitz calls Shag "Mop Boy" or says Muzzle is crazy ("Storm On The Pacific") he's doing it to be malicious and make them feel bad. I think Blitz just says whatever pops into Blitz's mind. He has no filter. Now, if he was continually harassing or humiliating Shag or whoever, then yeah, I would say he was a bully then. 

If anything, I feel like Blitz is the one who gets bullied at times by certain other characters. 😐

6.) He detests being seen crying.

7.) Aside from plain ol' immaturity, a major component of Blitz's issues stem from from what's known as toxic shame. A YouTube channel I follow has a great video here discussing what toxic shame is. It's best summed up there like this: it's the pervasive belief that you are not enough and will never be enough, so you must work endlessly to keep that terrible truth a secret from everybody else. Now I personally don't believe Blitz is a full-on narcissist, but he could very easily turn into one if he doesn't learn how to accept his flaws and address his toxic shame directly.

8.) One of the things he's ashamed about is not having proper dobie markings. If you'll look at his design, he lacks the "socks" black and tan dobermans usually have.

9.) This is an idea of Lilikoi's: "I don’t think Blitz would be someone who likes pranks, if I can be honest. Like no matter who was behind it, I think they’d just annoy him."

10.) At the start of my fics he’ll have dialed back his antagonizing of Hunter as well as his bragging (somewhat), but is at a loss as to how to go about improving his relationship with Hunter and the other Alphas.

11.) His official team position at the start of my series is Close Combat and Infiltration.

12.) I've kept his love of mint as a character trait. I never understood the whole "Eew peppermint milkshakes lol!" joke in the show. I love minty desserts myself -- and often get the same reaction Blitz does, lol. Blitz also likes frankfurters and liverwurst.

13.) Blitz is one of the odd domestic animals who's actually kind of into naturism and doesn't care about or is bothered by nudity (in real life Europeans aren't bothered by nudity like many Americans tend to be anyways). Don't worry, I'm not going to get weird with this. [Again for the deviantART branch of the fandom -- DON'T COME AT ME BEING GROSS AND HORNY ABOUT THIS. Leave me the hell alone, I do not share in your creepy-ass fetishes.]

14.) Most of the OFCs in the STARS-verse either like Blitz or just have a normal person's reaction to his antics and such. They'll roll their eyes or laugh at him, but it's not the over-the-top homicidal rage and severe bullying that a majority of other fans love to have their OFCs exhibit towards him. Again, I feel like if things ever got to that point, other characters and even the Master would step in and restore order. There are certain characters who just outright dislike him, but that's to be expected.

15.) Blitz is touch starved, although this is something he would never admit to.

16.) I've chanced across several online sources describing European dobermans as being of a more nervous and neurotic nature then their American counterparts, though this seems to ultimately vary from individual to individual. Here's one such link discussing it. Maybe this could partly explain why Blitz is the way he is. But I've also heard American dobies be described as shy, timid, and not that great at physical activities like schutzhund. I wouldn't doubt if bias for or against a particular type plays a part in the inconsistencies of these accounts. One consistency I did keep coming across though is that European dobies are supposed to be working dogs as opposed to show dogs, so they are bigger and more muscular then the American type is.

17.) I've (mostly) given his family Christmas-related names. Blitz's parents are Vixen and Dasher, and his littermates are Dancer (male), Prancer (female), Cupid (male), Star (male), Rudy (Rudolph; male), Nutmeg (female), and Nicky (male; a reference to St. Nicholas). Dancer and Prancer are from a prior litter, so they are the eldest sibs. "Wait, what about Comet and Donner?" Ah, I'm keeping those two names in reserve for now. ;)

Now, the following is Evil Writer's headcanon: Blitz is actually the runt. Due to this, his brothers, with the exception of Prancer, who was more mature then they were and doted on all of his younger sibs (his sister Dancer was the same way) often picked on Blitz. No, their parents didn't allow this to just happen. If they were present and spotted Blitz's littermates starting in on him then they would step in and stop it, but they were busy parents and couldn't be everywhere all the time. So, sick and tired of being the underdog (hurr hurr), Blitz started training himself to become tough enough to fight back. As he grew he got bigger and stronger, though his brothers are still bigger dogs than he is.

18.) I noticed Blitz was sorely lacking in buddies in my setting, and really wanted to fix that for STARS. In general I feel that in many fandoms platonic friendship is neglected (often in favor of shipping), especially Road Rovers. While I do have him and Exile as being friends, I also wanted to expand his circle and give him some more pals closer to him in age. Aside from the aforementioned mystery OC mentioned earlier, I decided to throw my trio of OCs Storm, Shiwa, and Venoli (yes, we will be learning more about them later) into the mix as well. The three of them are misfits as well, so they know what it's like to get looked down on. There'll be a fifth OC as well, though I'm not sure if I should give away her identity right now or not. She is making her debut in New Dogs, I can say that much.

19.) Out of all the Alpha Rovers he is the most health conscious. He tries his best to eat right (although being a dog, there are times where he slips up and indulges in junk food), and if possible, will exercise on a daily basis for at least two hours. Even at his master's home he tries to adhere to this.

20.) Because of his past as a watchdog, he has a tendency to be more active at night and sleep during the day. 

21.) I admit to not being a fan of Greywolf Lupous' take on Blitz even though she gave him a love interest (Huntress). Blitz was an out, loud, and proud chauvinist in her stories, and I just don't think that's in his nature (nor do I understand how Hunter would be okay with his sister being with somebody who was like that in the first place). Further ruminating on it, I don't really even get the Blitz/Huntress pairing. I don't remember reading any fic that featured them being romantic, getting to know one another better, or even making any offhand mention of them being an item. The whole thing just seemed to be an afterthought. I remember seeing one story that revealed Huntress as having a kid named Duke in the conclusion, who I assume was Blitz's son, but Blitz was entirely absent from the scene. So I don't know was it even actually his kid or not. 

So I'd rather just do my own take on Blitz's love life, because at least then I can come up with the how and the why and then show them actually interacting together. For STARS, I treat Blitz and Huntress' relationship as "lust at first sight", and in Huntress' case, a way to show Hunter that he doesn't have a say in who she dates. Dating a dude he has beef with is just an extra bonus point. Personally, I've always found Hunter's behavior towards Huntress in Greywolf's stories to be pretty overbearing and controlling, and want to tackle that here.

Going back to Huntress and Blitz, they like and have fun with each other, but in the long run, both come to realization that there really isn't a whole lot of substance to their relationship. 

"How dare you disrespect Greywolf like this, OLU!" 

I'm not disrespecting her. I don't have any beef with her and have never met her before (everything I saw from her back when I'd just joined the fandom suggests that she'd grown fed up with both it and the entitled behavior of a number of other fans. A very understandable sentiment). All I'm saying is that I don't get the point of the Huntress/Blitz coupling because it didn't seem to affect the characters or anything else (unless there was some fic somewhere that I never saw), and it won't be a permanent thing here here. My fics occur in a totally separate setting from her's anyways.

22.) I noticed a few writers will have Blitz swear more than the other Rovers do. I have complicated feelings on swearing within stories in general, but I personally don't believe he'd swear any more than anybody else would. 

23.) I devised some hobbies for him in order to punch him out as a character: weightlifting, staying fit in general, "tushie biting" (his words), European auto racing, soccer, watching TV and movies, hanging out with his buddies, and swimming. He's also a gearhead, being into flashy sports and muscle cars. This next interest was actually partially inspired by EW -- like many a male dog, he has a tendency to wander. 

Also, I really wanna give him a skill that he's too embarrassed to show off  -- nothing gross or inappropriate, but just something not commonly associated with masculinity. 

PERSONAL

Let me just say that while I do really like Blitz as a character, I don't believe that I'd actually put him on a formal list of favorite fictional characters of mine's. Like, he would not be up there with Caesar from the new Planet Of The Apes movies, or the Android from the series Dark Matters, or Prowl from Transformers Animated (hey, another Jeff Bennett character!), and that's sadly because he was pretty underdeveloped in the show. It's the same thing with Antoine from Sonic The Hedgehog. There's just not enough there to feel a real strong connection to (at least with how he was presented in the show). I do like Blitz because I think a ton of people out there are extremely unfair to him, he has a few cool moments under his belt, and what he could have been with better writing though. He's a literal underdog, and I've always had a soft spot for those types.

I am planning on giving Road Rovers a rewatch at some point however...

Even with the scant few attempts in fanfics at giving him a more sympathetic and nuanced portrayal that I've seen, it's almost always a two steps forward, two steps back deal. Or it's the kind of stuff I discussed in the last post, where the character is named Blitz but really isn't him, and the writer just tosses all the lore and everything else having to do with the show out the window. Or it just plays up the show's goofiness and blandness (while adding in fetish material). I saw one story that looked potentially interesting, but then it threw in a particular OC that I can't stand, so I dipped. 

I've also seen one or two things where the writer wanted to develop him, but still had the stance of "Well, he just needs to learn how to tolerate and accept the quirks of the other characters (basically, what was the bad/or extremely unpleasant behavior of these characters, though the writer didn't seem to realize they'd fallen into this trap)", or how he just needs to learn the true meaning of being a Road Rover. 

Um, what does he need to learn exactly? What is that true meaning then? Because I don't think Hunter knows what it is... Again, go watch the show. He does help out the team. It's just that barely anybody wants to acknowledge when he does, but then blow up all of his mistakes. As you can tell, I've really grown to not care at all for "Blitz dislikes X but changes his mind after learning to tolerate X" type plotlines and try to avoid them. Instead, I would rather have both him and his BFF/or love interest learn and grow together as individuals, instead of just putting the impetus solely on Blitz's shoulders.

In short, I want to have my boy earn his happy ending and have him be around people who give him respect and kindness. I know I can't control people's feelings regarding Blitz. I can only hope that my fics help paint him in a different light, in the way myself and the one other person out there who likes him as a character (and not just fetish fuel*) view him. 

*While I loathe the whole "you're not a real fan of this or that if you don't act this way or do this specific thing I want you to do!" mentality that certain kinds of fans have, there is one exception I have to this. If you say you like a character, but that like seems to wholly boil down to how they give you a funny feeling in your pants, or you make them completely unrecognizable in your fan works or whatever, without showing exactly why and how they changed in the first place, then no, I don't think you're really a fan of the character. *shrugs*

"Tch, you're so arrogant/hypocrital, OLU!"

Same warning from my last post still stands: this is all just for fun/airing out my thoughts. I'm not going to put up with any RR fans' bs. I'm just going to block you if you come on here trying to come for me.

The Character Corner: Blitz

 

 This animated character took my job, my spouse, the kids, and my house!

I mean, that's what you'd think from listening to the anti-Blitz folk rant and rave about him... 😏

Opinions on Blitz vary. There were and still are a ton of folk out there who react to his existence like this:

As for the people who are more receptive to him as a character, you got people who basically thirst for him because he fulfills their furry muscle fetish/or and project their personal issues/trauma onto him:

 

And finally, people who treat him as a doll they can slap a new generic hero/romantic lead type personality onto:

 

It's pretty lonely for somebody like myself who's actually interested in developing Blitz as a character and showcasing said development throughout her stories. I'm going to try my best not to sound like one of the aforementioned weird cringe fail Blitz fans who clearly are just using him as their self insert, so here goes:

I haven't always liked him like I do now, but seeing all of the ridiculously over-the-top, all-consuming hatred and rage the majority of the fanbase has had for him for decades now has honestly made me start taking more positive notice of him. Like yes, he could be annoying at times in the show, but I found the other Rovers to be just as annoying at times. Later rewatches of the show just made me end up feeling more and more sorry for him. 70% or 80% of the screen time he gets is just devoted to crapping all over him. This kind of humor is unappealing and not funny to me. 

In Road Rovers, character development often tended to be sacrificed purely for the sake of humor, and it seems the writers were really reluctant to have Blitz actually grow up. A perfect of example of this can be found in "Storm On The Pacific". Blitz didn't believe that Hunter could be a good leader, but in the end changed his mind and admitted Hunter wasn't bad at his job. But in the final episode "A Day in The Life", the writers now seem to have completely forgotten that this matter had been resolved already and had Blitz bickering with Hunter over his being the leader again. Just... oy, that kind of bad characterization bugs me so much.

Honestly, it's a real testament to his character that he still sticks by the other Rovers in spite of everything and goes out into the field with them. That to me indicates that he isn't that much of a chicken if he's still willing to put himself into danger like that. I mean, he could just refuse to go all together. Wasn't he the one having to push Shag into action in the pilot (I think?), telling him "Come on Mop Boy."?

The way his cowardly streak gets handled is fairly inconsistent. In a number of episodes, such as the pilot, "A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You", "Storm Over The Pacific", and "Hunter's Heroes", he doesn't hesitate to charge straight into the action. He also appears to act more courageously as a normal old dog. He only becomes scared whenever he wound up in real danger, like when Fluffy grabbed hold of him or when he was taken prisoner by Zachary Storm's troops in the aforementioned episodes. His faint-hearted nature seems to come and go, but reveals itself most when he's in legit danger. I'm inclined to think that this fear also ties into a character trait he's demonstrated several times -- he's a glass half empty type of guy, the best example of this being his asking Hunter exactly how were they going to free all the dogs Parvo had imprisoned in "Hunter's Heroes", citing the sheer number of dogs there were. To me, the overall vibe he puts off in that scene, as well as his expression when Hunter responds "[Yeah, and] we're gonna free all of them" reads like he doesn't think the Rovers'll be able to pull it off. And if you go around believing that the worst is always going to happen, especially to you, then well, that's probably not going to make you feel very emboldened on literal life and death missions and fights.

Blitz has had his moments of actually not making rude comments and even being *gasp* nice! He was even given a few badass moments. I love it when, in "Hunter's Heroes", Blitz and Hunter are ready to split after the Rovers have rescued all the imprisoned dogs, the Groomer shows up, and she's pretty pissed. Blitz's response? "Sorry crazy lady, we don't have time to play. Maybe later, okay?" and pulls out his piece and opens fire, sending her packing. I also love seeing him chasing around the cano-mutants earlier in the very same episode. I might have to actually rewatch the show to see if there are any other scenes like this.

Yet viewers carry on like Blitz is literally this supervillain barely able to restrain himself from raping anything female and attacking their wonderful, beeooootiful  totally not annoying at all LOL OFCs. People make Blitz out to be both unnecessarily and overly aggressive, threatening, and outright cruel towards others (small children and other animals included) when all he did in the cartoon was just be a silly pompous windbag and a one-time catcaller at worst (for the record, do I like cat-calling? No, but that doesn't make Blitz a woman-hating rape machine). He's viewed as the worst kind of chauvinist pig, a mean bully, or a threat to the Hunter/Colleen ship (crazy shippers strike again!). It all just begs the question: if Blitz literally is Satan, P. Diddy, and Hitler all combined, then just why would the Master recruit him in the first place? Doesn't that reflect poorly on him? Makes him look like a real bad judge of character if one of the Rovers he picked was pure unfiltered evil, y'know. 🤔

But it isn't like the people screaming about all this are super logical in general and write the Master's character very well either in their fics either, so...

Someone once said that he'd leave the rest of the Rovers behind just to save his own skin. Um, wasn't Colleen totally willing to abandon him to the villains at least twice (again, see "Storm" and "Day In The Life")? 

Oh, it's okay when she does it? My mistake then, I'm so sorry.

Honestly, I don't get the people who quite clearly intensely hate Blitz and yet still include him in their fics. At this point I'm of the mind that you should either write such a character out of the story altogether somehow, or even kill them off. I mean, y'all are just making yourselves mad by having Blitz there hitting on Colleen or being abused by your OCs tormenting your OCS or whatever. But the show made sport out of bashing him, and people who hate Blitz seem to get up early in the morning to burn incense and animal sacrifices at the alter of Hunter, so maybe that's why. If one character is literally Jesus, that you need somebody around to be the devil.

Most Blitz fans don't do a good job of handling his character either. Most of them tend to whitewash his flaws and turn him into an entirely different character with none of his old quirks just so he can be their idealized leading man. To me, doing that completely defeats the whole point of writing fanfiction in the first place. You might as well just use a fan character in that case. I've also noticed that some people who do stuff like this tend to have these completely off the wall views about Blitz as well as the rest of canon. I'm sorry, but there's no evidence in the series indicating that Blitz hates the other Rovers and wants to seriously harm them. No, they don't hate him either -- he irritates them, yes (some more then others), but they don't actually hate him. Again, all that stuff was played for laughs and these are the good guys. You know, upright, heroic, generally caring types, the exact opposites of villains? Yet ya'll have them all acting just like villains. But the people who think that the other Rovers want to snuff Blitz in his sleep also treat him as a proxy character they project all their personal issues onto. I've always found this kind of thing to be frankly, well, pathetic, as well as extremely uncomfortable to witness. Just go and talk to a reliable mental health professional. Stop going after other people for not conforming to your bizarre, obsessive views on a cartoon doberman.

Now with the way Colleen usually treats him, I can at least see where the whole "she hates him" thing actually comes from. But even so, I still can't really see them actually wanting to murder the other in cold blood or anything like that, Blitz especially. I'd like to think that she'd be just as worried as the others would be if Blitz were to be say, seriously hurt or something, but unfortunately the show often made it seem like she wouldn't give a -- pardon my French -- golden shit. The show definitely had her go way overboard in how she dealt with Blitz, to the extent where she's the one who comes off as a complete jerk and a bully a lot of the time. Granted, while rewatching RR before their interactions weren't quite as physically abusive on her end as I remembered them being, but still. A very passionate (a polite way of saying "batcrap crazy") ColleenXHunter shipper (I want to try to avoid making generalizations here, but speaking honestly ColleenXHunter shippers in my experience tend to be very exhausting people to be around) once told me that Blitz deserved the grief Colleen gives him because he called her stuff like "pretty girl dog" instead of using her actual name. Yes, because that's the adult way to handle a problem with a teammate. Schoolyard taunts and constantly antagonizing them! Not just that, but if the situation was reversed, then do you guys honestly think Blitz could get away with doing all that to Colleen?

I think the Blitz and Colleen interaction in the show would've been far more bearable if he was allowed to successfully sass her right back. I know he tried to a few times in the show, but just never really had anything good to say back to her. So after while it really does come across like her just picking on him for no reason whatsoever, and it becomes insufferable, dull, and unpleasant to watch. Why not have them snipe at each other like how Homer Simpson does Patty and Selma? Or how Uncle and Tohru's mom in Jackie Chan Adventures basically had insult battles, or Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter, you know, make things more even? Not just that, but it'd be so much more interesting than just rehashing the same tired "Who are you again? Oh I know, Blinky/Fluffypants/[insert some dumb name here]!" gag from Colleen that I see get repeated in both the show and fandom over and over again. Do people actually still think that's funny in the year of our Lord 2024? 

Like I was saying before, there are people who like Blitz just because they have a furry muscle fetish. Honestly, I don't even care if anyone does have a harmless (read: doesn't involve harming anybody else, animals included) fetish. What I do care about is you (and this is something that the aforementioned people like to do) yelling at everybody else demanding they not draw rule 34 or fetish art while you sit there and draw it yourself. What I care about is you rubbing your fetish in my face constantly while smirking and repeating "This isn't a fetish! If you think it is, then you're the weird one!" 

The people I'm referring to here always act horny on main while being massively hypocritical at the same times, and it's so repulsive and grating. Do you go to your grandmother and constantly talk about your gooning habits with her? Your boss? I sure hope you don't. Just treat everybody like you do Grandma, unless they themselves actually tell you it's fine to do otherwise.

Some people approach Blitz as being stupid because of how pigheaded and hung up on himself he acts in canon, but I don't actually feel he's stupid as much as he just brags a lot, is impulsive, makes bad decisions, can be rude, has a big mouth, is a cynic, and tends to be rather unobservant. I also think he suffers from social ineptitude to a certain degree. I mean, in the show he never seems to pick up on the fact that the other Rovers tend to find his attitude annoying, and still persists in acting that way. 

That's a bunch of character flaws right there, but you know what? I find flawed characters that canon recognizes as being such vastly more interesting than the "crafted by the gods from 24 karat gold" supermen and women type characters (see: Hunter, Princess Elena [and weirdly enough, Elena actually has visible flaws, but canon barely ever wanted to treat them as being such]). 

When I look at a flawed character, I ask myself three questions:

Why is he/she like this? 

Do they have the capacity to change and become better, more well-rounded people? If so, how? What is that process like? For the sake of interesting storytelling, it can't be easy.

I know the talented Jeff Bennett gave Blitz a bombastic-sounding voice suited for spitting out the character's self-aggrandizing, flighty dialogue (though I think all the Rovers have this problem), but voice /= personality. In this instance, when I refer to voice, I literally mean how the character sounds and speaks. I acknowledge that it can be tricky to make sure Blitz still sounds like Blitz while allowing him to grow beyond the confines of what the show laid out for him. 

Blitz also definitely seems like an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody to me -- the whole bodybuilder thing and the way Jeff Bennett made him sound like Ahnuld. I love the fact he isn't the stereotypical vicious doberman seen so much in popular culture. The idea of this big scary-looking dog like a doberman being a chicken in actuality is a fun and novel concept. I just don't like the way Road Rovers ended up handling it.

Somebody on FIM Fiction.net had a particularly interesting quote pertaining to characters like Blitz: 'I've personally always seen flat/underused characters as more like seeds that you could grow into something really neat if you take the time and effort to do it right.' I completely agree. I feel like so many of the characters people turn their noses up at have the potential to have some very interesting hidden depths to them, Blitz included. Aside from doing a redemption story for him, I would also like to actually flesh him out and make him more interesting to read about.

There's a little show on Netflix called Stranger Things. I dunno, you might've heard of it. Well, I've never actually watched the series before myself, but did see a retrospective on YouTube about it a while ago that made me interested in watching the first season at least, in part due to a character in it named Steve Harrington. Steve is apparently an obnoxious jock who grows throughout the show into a better person. That's what I want for Blitz.

Yes, I know the odds of his undergoing this sort of transformation if RR had gotten a second season is pretty slim, but you think I seriously care about what canon would or wouldn't do?

There are a few people who complain that the Rovers' powers are boring, but I think they work for them myself. I mean, it makes sense for a guard dog to have super jaws, teeth, and claws that can rip up anything. Really, Blitz should be like Wolverine, or Inuyasha whenever he busts out his Iron Reaver attack, just slicing people up left and right. 

Thinking about this made me wonder if the producers or whoever partly decided to make Blitz a coward so they could get around showing a dog person mauling people in a cartoon aimed at kids and their families.

I don't have this limitation when writing fanfic.

Switching gears, Blitz/Colleen shippers are the ones I referred to earlier as the ones who are most often guilty of just suddenly turning Blitz into what they perceive to be a more suave or gentlemanly personality, but in the process also making him extremely bland and depriving him of the traits shown in the show. Though as I said before, I do think he'd be much cooler were there more to his characterization than just his calling everybody "[Adjective] Boy" (which isn't even something he does all the time in canon like fics would have you believe) and being obsessed with biting people in the rear. But I don't believe completely changing his personality in the blink of an eye is the solution. 

I deplore it when people pair together characters who either dislike/or hate each other, or one character dislikes/hates the other. So as you can imagine, I'm not a ColleenXBlitz shipper. At all. Plus, Colleen is also usually extremely OOC in these kinds of stories (or what passes for being OOC with her anyways, given her extreme flatness in the show), so I avoid them like the virtual plague. ETA: Also, there's this subgroup of BlitzXColleen shippers who seem to (poorly) write... really weird, juvenile, fetishistic stuff about them.

I'm personally of the mind that Blitz's whole thing with Colleen was lust rather then love. He did seem to dial back his flirting with her later in the show, though that could've also been due to him seeing that his attempts weren't successful.

As you may have guessed, hell no I do not ship them together. I can only think of one scenario where I could ever see that happening, but both characters would need to be in their golden years, i.e. pretty old, and their respective partners would both have to either be dead or otherwise out of the picture.

When it comes to Blitz pairings, I prefer either OCs or crossover pairings, where a character from a different series/movie/game/etc is bought in somehow and they go on to develop a relationship. No, I don't have any crossover couplings for him at the moment. I've seen some fans pull for Blitz/Exile, which I'll take over the Blitz/Colleen ship, but personally I just prefer for Blitz and Exile to be chums more than anything. One reason I'm not real interested in them as a coupling is due to my latest headcanon about the age difference between the two characters. Let's just say that I think Blitz is actually much too young for him. I'll discuss this further in my headcanon section in the follow-up post to this one. I'm still mulling over what Blitz's romantic life will be like within my fan-verse. 

I simply just don't like Hunter, so pairing him with Blitz makes me go "blegh". If someone ever did write a fic that was really different -- for one, they actually took the time to explain how a romance could develop between them in the first place and toned down Hunter's Gary Stu aura -- then I might check it out out of curiosity (I say "might" because RR is a fandom where I have to screen authors ahead of time to make sure s/he isn't somebody who has preexisting beef with me or something). But I never see anything like this. It's always just Hunter and Blitz suddenly making out together and being lovers with no buildup whatsoever. I think this is just furbait basically.

I will say Blitz's paramour is not gonna be Huntress (OC created by a fan called Greywolf Lupous who's Hunter's sister and Blitz's girlfriend in Greywolf's fics, as well as the fics of a few of her friends) per my setting -- at least, not in the long run. In my AU, they date early on and wind up having an amicable breakup. There are other fan characters I'm eying as eventual partners for him. I'm finding that I prefer for Blitz's ships to be subversive -- you expect him to prefer a certain type of lady as a girlfriend just because of how we see him behave in Road Rovers, but oh, surprise -- you wind up getting something totally different instead. And then I as the writer have the fun task of trying to show readers how we got from point A to point B with him and his beau in first place.

The Road Rovers fandom can give Sonic The Hedgehog and Disney fandoms a run for their money in terms of sheer social ineptitude, obsessive behavior, and unpleasantness, so if I get anyone trying to attack me for my opinions here, then I'm not going to even try and engage, I'm just gonna nip that mess in the bud immediately. Please understand that I don't mean calm rational disagreement, I mean flinging insults and throwing temper tantrums over my having a different opinion than you/or your favorite BNF.