STARS-verse Dreamcast

Always fun to imagine who could voice the characters in your works, and that's what this post is for. I should note certain voice actors are different from the ones Evil Writer selected for his Quick Strike-verse, and that this is just how these characters would sound per my setting. I ended up hitting upon the idea of having different VAs for STARS, especially since some of the characters have gotten touched up for my AU.

Hoping to be able to do one of these for almost every story I have featuring OCs, or fics where a character doesn't have a voice actor for whatever reasons.

I'll update this list every time I post a story with new characters.

Lord Death: Oded Fehr
Roles: Ardeth Bay (the 1999 The Mummy), Ras Al Ghul (Young Justice).

I think he's done more voicework at this point than live action roles? My selecting him was a nod to the character's Middle Eastern roots in the QS series. I feel he could successfully portray a sinister, domineering, cold sorcerer. 

Lady Dread: Bebe Neuwirth 
Roles: Lilith (Frasier, Cheers, Wings), Mirage (Aladdin), Belladonna (All Dogs Go To Heaven: The Series).

Randomly remembering Mirage one day was what nailed Neuwirth as Dread's VA. Dread isn't as over the top the way Mirage is all the time, but I think Neuwirth could easily dial it back some as needed. She sounds playfully sinister and elegant, all the while relishing the idea of mowing down the good guys or any innocent people who get in her way for for kicks (yes, she will be a reoccurring villain). 

Zaygos: Robert Englund 
Roles: Scarecrow (Injustice 2), Freddy Krueger (og A Nightmare On Elm Street series).

If you're a horror fan, then you already know who this guy is. One October I was watching the (really fascinating) documentary Never Sleep Again, which is about the Elm Street movies. I thought "Y'know, t'd be a nice little nod and a wink if the OC bad guys in STARS had VAs who were known for being horror villains." The perfect Zaygos voice would be a mixture of Anti-Pops from Regular Show and the Khan in The Master of Orion.

The jury's still out on Kaymat, Vile, and Lustfox, though I have a couple of potential choices for Lustfox. 

Tyron: Liam Neeson 
Roles: Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List), Qui-Gon Jin (the Star Wars prequels). 

What else can you say about Liam Neeson? He was a shoe-in for Tyron all way back in the day thanks to the movie Rob Roy. The man's voice just exudes regal gravitas.

Aurora: Drew Barrymore 
Roles: Danielle (Ever After), Josie Geller (Never Been Kissed).

Another voice actor carried over from the QS-verse verse. Sweet, but not a pushover, with down to earth, and -- call me stereotypical for saying this -- girl next door energy. 

Cyan: Rob Paulsen 
Roles: Holy crap, just go and watch a cartoon, especially one from the late 80s-'90s.

I've already discussed this dude here before and why I like him so much. I think he's talented and versatile enough to devise a voice that could fit Cyan in this "What if my fanfics were an actual animated series" scenario.

Streetwise: Daveed Diggs 
Roles: Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton), Andre Layton (Snowpiercer).

Diggs ultimately won out because his portrayal of Lafayette has such a cheeky, energetic vibe I thought fit Streetwise perfectly. He also succeeds in not sounding like an American putting on a corny French accent.

Dama: She's been more of a tricky character to cast, but a friend of mine ultimately landed upon these four actresses. Either Laura Fraser, Karen Gillan, Sharon Rooney, or Amy Manson

Laura Fraser 
Roles: Kate (A Knight's Tale), Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul).

Karen Gillan
Roles: Amy Pond (Doctor Who), Kaylie Russell (Oculus).

Sharon Rooney
Roles: Rae Earl (My Mad Fat Diary) Lawyer Barbie (Barbie).

Amy Manson
Roles: Merida (Once Upon A Time), Maladie (The Nevers).

Looking over the profile EW wrote for Dama as well as reading the fics she's appeared in, I landed on her characterization here as someone who's inwardly torn about her heritage at times, but also fearless and ready to face down trouble with a can-do attitude and cleverness. So a voice actress would have to successfully embody those qualities. The only one I'm actually familiar with is Frazier and Gillan.

I don't have anyone for either Eric or Blades yet. For the latter, I'd prefer a authentic Japanese actress. I've had a couple of ideas for Eric, but am still in the process of sussing them out. Originally Tom Hanks was going to be Powerplay, but now I'm considering a younger voice actor who's a native Canadian. I have no shortages of choices there to choose from.

Oh, FYI, Professor Hubert's og voice actor, David Doyle, passed all the way back in 1997, so EW brought up the idea of recasting Hubie in the QS-verse. My own personal choice for STARS? Jeffrey Combs.

The context behind that scene is super unhinged (an understatement), but that's still like the standout line for me in that movie.

"New Dogs, New Tricks" Chapter One commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

 

-- Forgot to mention this in the last post, but the fic title is a reference of sorts to the title of Eric and co's debut story in the Quick Strike-verse, New Dogs On The Block. I wanted a twist on it as a nod to that particular story. In the Friendship Is Magic fandom, a lot of people were doing AUs that shifted the roles of that series' characters around, with some plots being rewrites of canon episodes, so a number of rewrites have titles which reference the original episode. I thought that'd be fun to do here. New Dogs, New Tricks is also of course a nod to the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Though I do wonder if it seem like I'm implying that the canon Rovers don't have any new tricks of their own, as it were. Which is not my intention -- in fact, one certain character will get his chance to shine in NDNT.

GENERAL:

-- I do feel like the Master creating the Transdogmafier would have a domino effect on the setting. I have yet to see any fanfics touch on that. It's just like one day the Road Rovers are there, then the next, there are more animal people who've seemingly come out of nowhere walking around and humans don't react to them, like they're something that's always been around like birds and vehicles. It's like the author started out at point A and then skipped straight ahead to point C. Missed opportunity for worldbuilding there.

 -- I chose to make Professor Hubert a bloodhound/basset hound mix. The Master proclaims he has the best sense of smell in the world. Well, in the dog world that title belongs to the bloodhound. I mean, they're kinda famous for it. People back in the old days of fandom called him a bloodhound. But Hubert's markings don't look very bloodhound-like. They are however more similar to a basset hound's. Bassets are regarded as being right behind the bloodhound in terms of their noses. So I was like "Heck, smush 'em both together. Mix-breeds are cool."

- First draft I had Hubert listening to the Beastie Boys on a Walkman. Regarding Project Circe that he mentions to the Master -- if you know your Greek myth and you look at this chapter, you can probably put two and two together about what kind of project Hubert was working on for Shepherd.

-- The Master being psychic is an idea I got from a fan writer named Chris Chestnut. I think it's an good solid explanation for why he can do the weird stuff he can do.

 

-- Yep, no Hunter or Shag in this story! This is a writing trick I picked up from another writer who goes by Dimensional Gatekeeper on FF.net -- shuffling characters around in order to spotlight other characters, as well as breaking up one large group of characters into several smaller ones. It's a way of seeing how they might behave without the entire team present, or with different characters in the mix. Plus, writing an eleven person team all hanging out together for an extended amount of time can get tricky. Some characters' voices can also end up getting drowned out, or the writer runs the risk of everyone all sounding the same. So it's also a good way of making sure every character gets some attention.

So Colleen might be absent for the next story, or it could be Muzzle/or Blitz (I mean, Muzzle didn't always go with them all the time in the show either).

-- My issue with many Road Rover OCs isn't necessarily the fact that people feel the need to create them, but how they aggressively dominate everything and aren't handled particularly well. Some feel like they would fit better in an original world of the author's own personal vision rather than the actual show itself. The canonical characters get no attention or development, and that's if they're even in the same story as the OC (although the OCs usually don't really evolve as characters any either). Or one particular canon Rover gets glazed and the rest treated like the Three Stooges as well as not being as special and morally upstanding as the writer's favorite Rover is. The Rovers' focus shifts from saving the world to helping out the super special OC with their own personal issues. Granted, that tends to revolve around a villain OC that's connected to the OC, but everything still ends up getting tied back to the OC. 

Now, I do find the concept of fan-made Rovers extremely appealing, firstly because the show's setting feels kind of empty, and secondly, I think the Master would want to create more Rovers to help out. Not a literal army -- that line from the Master about not wanting to create his own army was a very deliberate choice on my part, as I've seen a bunch of fics where that was indeed the case, and it just begs the question of how is RRMC able to support all these Rovers living there. And why hasn't crime just been wiped out by the Rover army? I also think having a ton of characters ends up taking away from the special-ness, as it were, of the ones we're supposed to be following in the fics.

At any rate, why not have other characters around for the canon Rovers to bounce off of and interact with? OCs equal new character interactions and relationships. Hunter and co can make new friends, new enemies, or new love interests. Or maybe some of them are neutral towards one another. That's what I'm interested in. Plus, with characters like Hunter and Colleen, I think they need pushback from other people who might *gasp* not look at them like they hung the moon, or even just disagree with them sometimes (FYI, I feel the same way about character dynamics in Sonic The Hedgehog and Elena Of Avalor. Bring in new/or different characters around the main group who can then look in and observe the inner circle). I mean, Blitz is the only one ever shown to be critical of Hunter in any way, and is often shown as being in the wrong the overwhelming majority of the time. I don't think that's realistic. Granted, we're not going to see much in the way of criticism towards Hunter or Colleen from this particular batch of new heroes just because they don't start out as having that kind of personality, but I've got some OCs of my own who will handily take care of that in the next story. :-) 

Also, the new Rovers in NDNT come from countries that it makes perfect sense to have Rover representation for. France is one of the nuclear powers, while mid '90s Japan and Canada were both global powerhouses. It's also brilliant to have this lineup of presidential pets be interspersed with dogs who already have homes with regular citizens.

 

-- This is my thought process -- a dog born on the streets, or one that constantly lived outside would not have any frame of reference for what a werewolf even is. Aurora knows about them (or at least werewolves in fiction) because she has a home and her master watches horror movies, so it's something she's picked up via osmosis.

-- Here's a basic rundown on those other RR teams I referred to as already existing here:

 

The Wild Kats: These guys were created by Greywolf Lupous. Dusty, who's a mixed-breed cat, is their leader. The rest of the team consists of Sugar, the siamese/burmese mix who's basically their Colleen, Trouble, the half manx half Maine Coon witch's cat, and Moffet the tech genius. There was a fifth character, Dinamite, Sugar's brother, but I ultimately chose not to use him because he's pretty flat and doesn't bring anything new or unique to the table. The Kats were first formed as a team when the Master called on them to rescue the canon Rovers, who'd been captured by Parvo. 

The Maddog Bounty Hunters: What it says on the tin. They belong to Greg Willis. Outlaw the mutt is their leader. We also have Beowulf the Great Dane, Silver the coyote, and Sapphire the Siberian husky. As mentioned in NDNT, their tech expert is human named Wesley Hawk. I think these guys are pretty unique (something that's I personally feel is lacking in most modern day OCs) and have some pretty creative backstories. There's more details I've left out but will cover when the Maddogs actually pop up in person. Also, props to Willis for how he handled the cano-mutants by remembering that they're actual threats that were only made that way thanks to General Parvo.

The Freelance Rovers: Yet more creations of George Aguirre. They're an international team of Rovers that were said to have several bases across the globe in George's fanfics, but I'm thinking that in STARS they'll just have one in Europe somewhere and a backup base elsewhere in case the first one gets discovered by villains or something. The few stories I've found starring them have not really been forthcoming with info about them or what exactly their specialty if any is. Their leader is a greyhound named Blades Broadsword. I'm not going to use every Freelancer there was, because with a number of them the only info I have is a name, maybe their breed, and nothing else. I do have a few ideas for the FRs, though this is mostly in the capacity of them being background characters. Same verse as before -- I'll talk more about my approach to them when they actually start appearing in the flesh then.

-- There are two variants of the akita, the American version and the Japanese. Obviously Blades is the Japanese subtype. They tend not to like other dogs or strangers very much.

-- Writing the scene where the new guys get to show off their respective personalities was very fun. Comparing the Master to musician Edgar Winter was just simply too good a joke/reference to pass up, and the surfer dog from Cali was the perfect guy to make the observation. In fact, I'd like to start a trend of other characters comparing the Master to famous guys, fictional characters included, with long white hair.

FUN FACTS:

 

-- If you're curious as to the thought process behind the new guys' powers, here they are as shared with me by EW: 

Eric: EW just thought that flight would be a cool power to have.

Powerplay: His breed; labs are famous as being water-loving dogs.

Tyron: A character from the series Big Bad Beetleborgs. 

Streetwise: The Super Punch was inspired by another OC who had a "super howl" as their power (though I don't know if that power was based more in soundwaves or if it was a shockwave). EW's twist on the idea is basically a joke based on Streetwise's breed.

Dama: Not really sure, actually. Apparently illusion casting was Aurora's original power before she got  invisibility.

Aurora: The Invisible Woman (Marvel Comics).

Cyan: Cypher (Marvel Comics).

Blades: A character from an obscure cartoon called Skeleton Warriors.

"New Dogs, New Tricks" prologue commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

N/A

GENERAL:

- It's very important to me to set up and establish the more important fan characters here, instead of just tossing them in and acting like they were always around. Granted, you could find a few stories written by their original creators featuring said characters here and there, but finding bios or intro stories that actually answered the vital questions of who they are and where they come from was hard. Heck, these days, even harder just because so many of the websites that hosted them have been down for years and years by this point. The fics/or the author's site have been lost to the sands of time. That's a major reason why I went "Well, I can just put an AU spin on these characters and go 'this is what they're like in my world.'" Makes things easier.

Now, the old school RR fandom (as in the fans who were around way back in the beginning) was very different from modern fandom in several ways, including the fact that people were completely free to use OCs that didn't belong to them just as long as they credited the creators in the fic itself. Nowadays? People crash out if you use anybody else's character because they believe you're trying to steal them. Yes, I'm speaking from experience. It's why I put the credits in the very first chapter. Granted, I always credit other writers, but this time I just made sure to put it up front in bolded lettering. Now, what thief does that?  

Personally, I have a very strong suspicion that these kinds of people actually want their OCs stolen. 

"Huh?" I hear you say. "Why the heck would anybody want to have their OCs stolen?" Well, here's why I think that:

- What better way to get eyes on them as well as sympathy then by spinning a scary story about a big bad character thief lurking about on deviantART? 

- The accusers not only feel they're morally superior and righteous compared to the "thief", but get to portray themselves as being such in the public eye as well. 

- In the late 90s/early 2000s, the fandom liked to do this thing where they would single out somebody for the smallest, most trivial thing and publicly jump all over them for it. Very much scapegoating/mobbing behavior. I'm quite embarrassed to say that I participated in it. I was dumb and very much swept up in groupthink back then.

As an extension of the above, the fandom in it's current state is inactive and doesn't have anything going on. Rallying together against a perceived outside threat is probably the most excitement these people get out of their lives.

- Believing someone is desperate to steal their characters reinforces in their imaginations their OCs are indeed the best thing since sliced bread. Doesn't matter that said OCs are so banal/or off-putting that I (or a number of other fans still hanging around who aren't in the orbit of those people, apparently) have zero interest in using them. The characters I'm "stealing" have a lot more potential/or actual interesting stuff going on with them.

A friend of mine's pointed out that none of them ever showed an interest in other people's characters, unless they could connect them with their own works. This tracks, because a couple of them don't even like OCs, but make an exception for their friends' characters/or characters made by popular fans. Back when I was posting a now deleted old fanfic, one of them expressed relief that said fic centered around the canon characters, because they didn't want to read or learn about my OCs. 

Okay. There are people some folks in fandoms (in general, not exclusively RR) who are primarily interested in just reading about the canons. Not my thing personally, but I can respect other people having preferences. But that particular person was so rude about it that I was automatically annoyed. It's hypocritical as well, because this same RR fan would also constantly talk about their OC (that I honestly find disturbing)/or their buddies' equally weird OCs, and acted like I was supposed to be super familiar with all these characters. I think the strangest instance was this person offhandedly mentioning some OC named Rammer to me. I searched their art gallery and journal, didn't see anything about this OC, and was like "Who even is that?" Didn't get a reply. I guess they were salty that I had no clue who Rammer was even supposed to be. Darn psychic powers, I guess they were on the fritz that day. 😄

But seriously, fans like that are exactly why I also put that author's note at the beginning of the FF.net New Dogs. 

So these accusations of theft (especially public ones) aren't done with any genuine concern in mind for the person who's supposedly being stolen from. They're done just because these fans enjoy dogpiling other people and bossing them around. 

- So most of the villains we see here in the prologue belong to George Aguirre, with the exception of Dread and Death, who are EW's. He either knew Aguirre or was friends with people who knew him. Aguirre's site was already long gone when I entered the fandom. The the only thing EW and I know about most of these characters was their species, and in the case of one particular OC, his appearance. So we "AU-ified" these guys for usage in our own stories because we think they're interesting. 

"You  should've asked George's permission!" Most of the people who left the fandom do not want to be bothered about it (see: Greywolf Lupous). Once again, believe me when I say I speak from personal experience. I don't know where they are now. I cannot pull an email address out of my butt or from thin air. In fact, I think the people who scream about character theft are fully aware of all this. They just don't care because they treat it as ammo they can use against you. 

"Haha, since you can't contact them, that means you can't ask them, so you shouldn't be using their OCs in the first place!"

"Well, I know a guy who used to hang with that same crew, and he never once told me that they were upset by the idea of their characters being used by other people. I think if it that wasn't the case it would've come up in our conversations, so reverse UNO card."

 - The Court of Twilight is a name I came up with myself for my AU, since I didn't wanna constantly refer to them as "Zaygos and his henchmen". The name's based around the fact that they're all animal species that are active during the evening. For all intents and purposes, they're to the Rovers what Apocalypse is to the X-Men, or the villains from the PreCure franchise are to that series' particular group of heroes. I was also influenced by Darkseid's Elite and Thanos and his Black Order (although personally I think Darkseid's crew was more distinctive and noteworthy in DC's cartoons then the Black Order was in the MCU). 

I'm not sure how much info I should give out about these guys, because I think some stuff should be saved for the sake of future stories, but if you're curious as to my thought process for my reimaginings:

Zaygos Design-wise, the STARS-verse interpretation takes inspiration from King Sombra from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and King Magnifico from Wish. I chose his coloration (which is an actual color variation red foxes can have called "fire and ice") in order to make him stand out instead of being the same old boring red/orange color that fox characters often are. I might give him a mustache too.

Lustfox: He was very much influenced by DC villain Glorious Godfrey. His being a fox really works with this idea, given that a ton of people are obsessed to a wild degree with them.

Kaymat: Neither I nor EW know anything about this character other than her being female. However, whenever she did show up, she was always with Zaygos and co, so it just felt wrong to exclude her. We made her a cat, though mine's is a mix-breed cat and ended up going down a different path than his version did. 

Alornso: My approach to him is "take no prisoners tormented badass".

Vile Darkness: This guy was the toughest to reimagine. EW initially had him as a sorcerer who could create and animate small animals. This can be an interesting and even scary power in the right hands, but I found that it really didn't work for the character per my setting. I toyed around with making Vile a tall, lanky, stereotypically ghoulish-looking dark sorcerer, then, a metamorph like Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen. 

His final form came about because I thought to myself "These guys need somebody to craft and forge weapons for them." So no more skinny goth wizard. He can do some other stuff as well, some of which we'll get to see in later chapters. Since he's someone whose duty requires him to be hands-on, I envisioned him as having a rough, unsophisticated way of speaking -- he's basically a country bumpkin.

Death and Dread are basically the same characters that EW always presented them as. I did change up the circumstances of how they and the Court of Twilight connected however, again just to simplify things and avoid plotholes.

The Court of Twilight's wardrobe was designed with their roles and personalities in mind. I will also say that all these guys are a lot more serious in my stories than what they were typically depicted as being. IMO, it makes them feel more threatening.

FUN FACTS:

- Lustfox mistakenly calling Lady Dread "Lady Dream" was originally a typo in the early draft, but then I thought that him messing up her name and not really caring would help to show what type of person he is.

Road Rovers STARS Headcanons

Gonna try to get the next chapter of New Dogs out this week, but in the meantime, here's a little something to tide readers over.

-- My stories include moments of levity and humor, and some will be straight-up action/comedies, but my brand of humor is for the most part is quite different from the show's itself. It’s less goofy, dated, and referential for one, and doesn’t rely so much on dog jokes or Blitz being Colleen’s punching bag as well as the butt of some gigantic cosmic joke in general. Humor does not trump characterization either. If it’s going to bother you not to see the show’s style of humor, then you don’t even need to be reading my stuff. If you can deal with it though, then enjoy.

-- Hunter, Colleen, and Exile (on occasion) are not the only cano-sapiens who can understand Shag and normal dogs. This is something the show did that I’ve always found really inconsistent and confusing. All Cano-Sapiens can do this, and the same goes for any other sapient or mutant.

-- The first season of Road Rovers STARS (the canon episodes) begins in 1996 (the same year the show originally aired). The stories pick up from there. The way the passage of time in the show was handled, particularly in “Still A Few Bugs In The System”, was weird. Like, that episode actually spanned several years? I’d have to look around to see exactly how long, but when I saw that I thought to myself “Well, I'm ignoring that.”

Actually, the passage of time in many fanfics makes no sense either. Sometimes things apparently happen over the course of several years, but again, nobody ever ages and the characters literally appear to be frozen in time. I'm going to have a timeline that makes actual logical sense.

-- When it comes to criminals, the Rovers are more like real-life police officers and less like Batman. If a villain is threatening to seriously harm or kill someone and cannot be talked down, then the Rovers are permitted to use lethal force to stop them if necessary. Also, EW bought up the idea of the Rovers specifically being ordered to kill on their missions instead of merely arresting criminals in some stories (something that a ton of fanfics skirt around). 

Also, a villain(s) who goes to prison will stay there for a decent length of time. In other words, it’s not going to be like all the jails we see in comic books where criminals are just continually escaping. If a villain does manage to frequently evade the good guys' clutches, then they will do so in a logical, plausible manner.

-- Since they were so poorly handled in the show, the canon Rovers will be getting some much-needed attention and development in STARS, thanks in part to EW. I feel fans get so impressed with their OFCs that the canon characters get turned into side characters. Hunter will not be the center of the universe here though like he is everywhere else.

-- The Rovers’ owners will also get focus here. The bond between human and animals is a special one, and something I feel deserves more attention then what it receives in the fandom.

-- The STARS-verse borrows characters and concepts from certain other authors, namely Evil Writer and George Aguirre (as far as several of the historical elements go), but many of the original fan characters not made by me/Lilikoi/Fox the Writer have been adjusted to varying degrees in order to fit into STARS better. The same goes for some of the aforementioned story concepts. Also, don’t expect to see many if indeed any popular fanon concepts here.

-- I wasn’t going to even touch on this, but because I’ve noticed so many contemporary Rover fans doing this I feel the need to comment. These fans make the Rovers more like real-life dogs given sentience who often still retain/or want to retain the mentalities and lifestyles of regular dogs (IE: giving their children away to human owners to be raised as pets and only visiting them occasionally, as opposed to wanting to raise them themselves).

I go the Disney route and have sapients being sentient even as regular animals (which is what the show itself even seemed to be heavily implying). They just can’t communicate with humans. I think there’s so much to be explored with sapients that fans don’t seem to care about. It just seems so lazy to go, “Yeah, they still live and act like dogs, only they can talk now! Well that’s all, byyyye!” Would the Rovers not realize that they have the power to do things now that they couldn’t as regular old dogs? You don’t have to obey the alpha dog. You can run the pack more democratically now. You don’t have to basically let your children be ripped away from you to be raised by total strangers of a different species anymore. And so on and so forth.

-- In a reverse of the previous rule, sapients are not reskinned humans either.

-- Something else nu!fanbase does that really singes my biscuits: how Parvo’s Mutants are handled. You get people who want them to have expanded roles and be comic relief, or treat them as being interchangeable with sapiens. But the show always presented them as non-speaking grunts and monstrous, corrupted beasts (granted, they did get nerfed over the course of the series). They also look distinctly different from sapients and have never displayed superpowers in the show. I don’t mind having them being capable of speaking, albeit not nearly as well or as clearly as sapients do, but I don’t need them holding long, complex conversations or doing pratfalls. 

A bunch of fans also have the Rovers killing them, which to me is morally wrong because they are killing innocent cats and dogs that were corrupted by Parvo against their will.

The Mutants in STARS are more primitive and aggressive than either sapients, TMNT-style mutants, and mutates are. They have little interest in the opposite sex or the like. They can be cured and changed back into normal animals with the Transdogmafier, as was shown in canon on several occasions (as hard as the fandom tries to ignore this). Parvo goes on to use other animal species as Mutants, including Furo-Mutants (ferrets), Shark Mutants, Urso-Mutants (bears), and Chiro-Mutants (bats). Other villains will end up employing Melo-Mutants (badgers) and Cheetah Mutants for specific schemes.

ETA: I think this was Usami's headcanon, but I like the idea of the Cano-Mutator being the evil opposite of the Transdogmafier, bringing out the worst traits of animals.

-- Here, there's more of a focus on the Rovers' personal lives and interests beyond them just fighting crime, the lulz, and shipping melodrama. They can't fight Parvo forever. I notice 97% of fanfics make it seem like they just sit around waiting for villains to attack. And if fans ever do decide to have them do something other then go on adventures, it'll be about them starting families (especially Hunter and Colleen, because they're the Anointed Ones). Nothing else.

-- Everyone and their grandma can't just break into RRMC like it's nothing. This is a common trope in fanfics that drives me nuts! In STARS, no villain knows where RMMC is. Not saying that'll always be the case, but as of now nobody knows. And even if someone were to discover its location, there are actual security systems that will alert the Rovers and at the same time stop the intruder. Not a glass door with a bell on it that rings whenever people walk in and out.

The STARS-verse -- inception and the Stations of Canon

Still working on the second half of the latest Character Corner, but I do have this ready to go to accompany my fic New Dogs, New Tricks. This'll be the first of several posts that will establish some worldbuilding and ground rules for my Road Rovers series, Road Rover STARS.

A long, long, long time ago, my RR stories were meant to mostly run concurrently alongside the Road Rovers: Quick Strike, or QS-verse series of fics, written by That One Evil Writer. His fics would've also been canon to my fic-verse, along with my own personal (old cringe) ideas and characters. Gradually however, seeing television series and movies, as well as reading various books in addition to a lot of great fanfiction, and higher quality reboots (both fan-made and official ones) made me start to wonder "What if?..."

.. Hunter had his own set of character flaws to overcome? Not external, out of his control "weaknesses" that exist purely to make people go "Aww poor baby", but real flaws that could make people come into conflict with him, or even not like him? As someone who does not like the character (lol), I felt going this route will ground the character and make him genuinely sympathetic, because I will be getting into his mindset and exploring why he behaves the way he does. 

... The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Mighty Ducks met the Rovers? I feel the non-human superheroes should hang out a lot.

... What if some characters found different partners than they did in the QS-verse?

What if, what if, what if?

Watching new and old shows makes me wanna emulate the things I like about them for RR. I take a lot of inspiration from series with ensemble casts (Northern Exposure and Band Of Brothers -- there's definitely a number of other shows I could add to this list that I've missed out on and do plan to watch) assorted animated series (Steven Universe, Transformers Animated, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, My Adventures With Superman, and The Owl House are some primary examples). Another influence was fanfiction for the series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. People have done every kind of alternate universe story for that fandom under the sun and then some. It was definitely a big source of inspiration for revamping my cast and setting.

STARS wound up developing into its own unique thing separate from what anybody else is (or was) doing for their stories, though I do take certain influences and headcanons from a select few other fan writers. Of course if the original creator is still around I ask their permission. Regardless, any creator whose OCs appear are always receive credit in my author's notes. The deviantART portion of the fandom seems to get its rocks off on the idea of people going around stealing characters. That's not what's going on here, and if you believe it is, you're always welcome to actually come and ask me.

I love lore. 

 

No, not that Lore. Story lore.

I have a simple rule of thumb for this setting: KISS. What is KISS?

Keep

It

Simple 

Stupid/Sweetie 

Streamline everything. I don't want any kind of convoluted, sprawling, overly complex backstories or plotlines (the hero was separated from their mother who was captured by the villains and cloned, and the evil clone traveled back in time to assume the real mother's place, while the real mom lost her memory and became a new villainess named La Strega!) or anything of the sort. This is also why I'm mostly keeping clear of time travel. I don't want any soap opera style stories or melodramatics either. I know people and their emotions can be really messy, but this is not Days Of Our Lives.

I also went and chucked a lot of the more clunkier, awkward concepts I devised previously.

Make it fun and engaging. It should be like sitting down to watch a compelling series, or following a series of books or an old-fashioned serial you really like, so you tune itn every week just so you can see what happens next.

While the original thirteen episode run is canon, there are minor details here and there that have been changed to varying degrees to suit my own personal tastes; I.E.: Prince Charles and Princess Diana becoming werewolves. That doesn't occur in STARS because I straight up think not only was it really dumb and pointless, but also dates the show really badly. Colleen's master is the actual guy who served as England's Prime Minister in the mid-90s, not the pseudo-Queen Elizabeth (or Margaret Thatcher?) the show uses. 

I only include characters that I actually want to write in some capacity. So if you don't see your favorite fan character, or one you might've made, then that's why. Some characters I feel are just better off being written by their creators. I'm not the creator, so I can only do so much guesswork about how a creator might approach their OC. A bunch of characters from the prelim versions of this setting, a number of my own included, were eventually dropped because I think they would have stretched plausibility way too much/or I wasn't sure how I could even properly fit them in (or, in the case of my personal OCS, were just lame, derivative characters). Some are just -- sorry to say -- either too underdeveloped to use or their presence became unnecessary. The only thing I know about them was a name and sometimes a species, if the latter even.

Something I'm very eager to try out is utilizing story elements that I wish other RR stories had but usually lack, like having a middle ground between the characters being animals, but uplifted animals that have expanded minds. Just about every story I see it's either one extreme -- they're humanoid dogs, but the writers treat them as being regular dogs mentally who still want to keep acting like and living like regular dogs... even though the author also wants human-style weddings for their OCs or Hunter and Colleen at the same time. If Hunter and Colleen are perfectly fine with stuff like allowing their children to be given away to humans to live with them, instead of just raising them themselves (because they're sentient now, so they totally have that option available to them), then why the heck would they even care about having a wedding in the first place then? Or courtship for that matter? Wouldn't Hunter just start humping Colleen right there on the spot? I'm sorry to be crass about this, but people are so inconsistent about this kind of thing. And in regards to giving away their offspring, wasn't the very last episode of the show all about Hunter trying to reunite with his mom because he desperately missed her? Do people even pay attention to canon?

The other extreme is the Rovers being written like they're humans in animal costume. You could just take off the dog mask and it'd be just some boring rando looking back at you.

I want a linear timeline that flows chronologically and normally. There are so many stories out there where the Rovers seem to go on thousands and thousands of missions every day, yet the canon Rovers act the exact same way they do in the show, no one ever develops or changes physically or mentally, and no one seems to age. If the canon Rovers are still acting the exact same they do in canon after 80,000+ life and death missions, or getting attacked/mutated/brainwashed/cloned/RRMC being invaded and blown up/etc, then, uh... I call bs. I want characters to have reactions to and be affected by the things that happen to them, not just glossing over it just so they can move on to the next adventure/or shipping.

A major problem with a lot of old school fanfiction is that concepts and characters were never explained from story to story unless you'd been there from the beginning or spoke behind the scenes with the fan writers. Sometimes the opening stories weren't available to read either. Plus, even way back when I know I didn't wanna include everything that happened in the QS-verse as part of my setting. Recently, while talking with a friend of mine, I asked myself this question: if you're borrowing a concept or an idea from somebody else for an AU setting, then why copy it to the exact tee? Why not take it and put your own unique twist on it? I want to really push the AU aspects in order to truly differentiate STARS from RR: QS. As part of this, some characters are basically rebooted versions of themselves (think like how Mr. Freeze was presented in the original 1960s Batman series and how he was updated for Batman: The Animated Series) in order to fit in better with this brand new setting and because I don't know everything about them. Some of the other canons I've incorporated have likewise been tweaked. In the case of DC and Marvel, I'm just mashing together select elements from the various media we've gotten over the years. 

Now, on to that "Stations of Canon" thing I mentioned in the title of this entry. Some stories, ideas, and events that occur in STARS are my personal takes on things other writers have either written about or were planning to write. They will play out in a completely different way here though, just because they'll be filtered through this new setting as well as my own thoughts as a writer. Since I have a different take on the canon Rovers and co as opposed to other fan interpretations (to say nothing of other characters in STARS, such as say Batman or Demona), there's no way that an event should go down in the exact same way. Likewise, the presence of new OCS and other canons existing together in this shared universe would also affect a number of situations.

I don't want to undermine either the Master or the canon Rovers. A lot of stuff does that, in some case unintentionally. He had the intelligence and skill to build a Transdogmafier, except no, not really, someone else did and he just took their idea. Oh look, all these other groups and random people out on the street now have Transdogmafier technology too!... somehow. Hey, he's getting in the way of the fan writer's precious donut steel, so we need somebody to swoop from the shadows, blackmail him, and basically take over the Road Rovers! And so on and so forth. The Rover should not feel like walk on cameos within their own setting. So many times it feels like they're made stupid and weak just to make the OC or whatever look better by comparison. Also, if you read my Character Corner entries on Blitz and Exile, then you know that I plan on having all the canon Rovers level up in some form or fashion so they're not left in the dust by more powerful characters.

As I said, some of the romantic couplings between the various characters are going to be different from what you've seen done before. Unless I really like a particular coupling, I don't see a point in copying what another writer does or has done before, especially when I don't even have all the details of how the relationship is supposed to play out for their setting. Plus, as I've said elsewhere, I enjoy playing around with new possibilities and character dynamics. I find those elements very interesting to explore. Romance is not going to trump and dominate everything else either. 

I want to tell stories that, to borrow a phrase I've seen elsewhere and which I think perfectly describes what I envision -- scratches that itch in my brain in a very satisfying way.

So that's it, that's all I got to say. Hope you enjoy the stories.

Latest RR story *finally* ready for public viewing!

The prologue for New Dogs, New Tricks is up on Fanfiction.net and A03! I did say that it was gonna be little bit longer before it got posted because it needed to be proofed a second time. But later I was just sitting there thinking to myself "Man, I'm ready to just move on from NDNT and focus on something new." That's not to say that I hate the story or anything -- had a lot of fun writing for these characters -- but I really wanna move on other ideas now. Fic's mostly done anyway.

Also, as somebody who prefers FF.net to A03, it's pretty sad seeing how the site seems just barely held together with string and chewing gum these days. Seems like the spammers and other issues ran a lot of people off. 

'Great Minds Think Alike' commentary & notes

I almost forgot, but since posting Blitz and Exile's respective character "analyses" it occurred to me that I should probably also repost the notes for the story the both them featured in over here.

REFERENCES:  

- This story heavily references the Road Rovers episode "Take Me To Your Leader", so...

GENERAL: 

- I wrote this story way back in 2014, well before I'd conceived of the STARS-verse, my RR crossover setting. I do consider Great Minds part of STARS. I'm probably going to eventually incorporate it into a one-shot collection I have planned to accompany the longer form stories for this setting, currently titled The STARS-verse: Constellations.

- The title Great Minds Think Alike just magically sprang into my mind one day. It seemed fitting when I saw Blitz and Exile unleashing Muzzle on Zachary Storm's henchmen together, and I'm sure Blitz likes to think he has a great mind. ;-)

- I love the ending with all of the Rovers as regular dogs saving the day, but I feel like more could've been done with this episode. They could've had a situation where some of the other Rovers, not just Blitz and Exile, are at each others' throats or something because of the situation between their masters, then coming together and using teamwork. Or maybe more exploration into Blitz and Exile's relationship. Some nice character development could have come out of that. But nope, instead we get Hunter stopping Storm, as is par for the course in the show. But at least he had the Space Rovers and Colleen's aid, which made things slightly more bearable.

I also didn't like how between Blitz and Exile, Blitz was made out to be the only one who thought his owner was in the right and thus came off looking worse then Exile did.

- In TMTYL, Storm's mind control machine is called the neural brain scrambler. That's a very redundant name, so I just dropped the "brain" part for Great Minds. I also decided to include a mention of Professor Hubert. It was never said how the world leaders were returned to normal after having their personalities altered, or if the effects just naturally wore off. I just chose to say Hubert whipped up some doohickey that restored them to normal. Also, what the heck happened to the neural scrambler? Did the Rovers just leave it on the bottom of the ocean, or did they try to get it, or what? 

Having thought about this, I've decided that for STARS, the neural scrambler will be making another appearance for a later story I have in mind. 

- At first I was going to have Blitz actually talk about how he didn't notice his master's excessively aggressive behavior, but as I thought about it, it seemed more in-character for him not to admit it out of shame. Some characters are open about their feelings, but I feel like a combination of pride plus his whole macho man attitude would keep Blitz from opening up about a lot of things (I go into this more in my analysis for him).

FUN FACTS:

- Something  I've noticed: anyone else find it interesting how aggressive and fearless Blitz is as a regular dog then he is as a Rover? Someone first brought this to my attention when they pointed out how he confronted the junkyard burglar back in the pilot. In TMTYL, he initially seems very willing to fight the "aliens", then, once he was a Cano-Sapien and actually got on their ship, lost his nerve.

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.