Casting Call

They came from the dark corners of Agama. The criminal elements of this South American region did not seem like much compared to the toxic heights of Olympia in 2019, when The Curse had an iron grip on every aspect of the city's existence, but it has long been a sad truth that no matter where one goes, if enough people gather together, a few bad eggs inevitably try to take advantage of the rest. Agama was no different, and it was here that Mr. Hippo would plant his flag and rebuild The Curse into a group worth defending again.

The fact that he was holding official tryouts with papers tacked up on local stores' bulletin boards and a big 'VILLAINS WELCOME' sign outside the office building he'd rented for interviews meant that he was attracting only a certain type of evil, though.

Not that Mr. Hippo minded. These were his people.

The Curse Retrospective, Part 3: What Got Cut

Here it is, the third and final installment in my Curse blogposts - the one that goes over the cutting room floor to bring you all the Curse members and event ideas that didn't make it to the forum.

We start with Watson up there, who was my "faceclaim" for Evolution, the evil supercomputer that got merged with Masher in an earlier draft of the plot. That story was already recounted in Masher's entry in the previous installment of this series, so let's move on.

The Curse Retrospective, Part 2: About The Cast

With the biggest plot of all time came the biggest cast of all time. There are far, far too many Curse members for me to give my thoughts on them all, but I will at least offer a bit of commentary on each of my own additions, plus a few honorable mentions for some of my favorite guest Curse.

The Curse Retrospective, Part 1: How The Curse Came To Be

The Curse. The biggest ZFRP plot of all time, and certainly not a record I'm willing to ever try to beat! Depending on how you count it, as many as sixty - or more - events in Season 9 had to do with The Curse. But how did it all start?

I haven't made it a secret that the name of The Curse, as well as eight of its' members - Plague, Shrapnel, Reaper, Impact, Titan, Puma, Ogre, and Troll - and several of the machines/vehicles that appeared, like Ogre and Troll's mech suits and the Badass Plague Tank - came from a real toyline. But the true origins of The Curse go back further than that. The Curse's origins are a tale of a little British toy company that could, their habit of reusing any molds they can to cut costs, and the world of 3.75-inch action figures.

Chatzy Madness Volume 351: The Curse Finale Edition

Jumpropeman: you know
Jumpropeman: Permakill would be a good name for a Kobber villain...
Jumpropeman: *rewrites my 2020 plot*
Gooper Blooper: any character he successfully damages is permakilled
Gooper Blooper: this can't possibly go wrong
Jumpropeman: so he's just Gregg
Gooper Blooper: I thought Gregg only normal killed
Jumpropeman: true, true
Jumpropeman: BUT
Jumpropeman: "In Conker's Bad Fur Day, Gregg has green shoes. However, In L&R, his shoes were changed to purple, along with his robe having a slight dark blue tint."
Jumpropeman: CLEARLY
Jumpropeman: Green Shoes Gregg permakills
Jumpropeman: and we only met Purple Shoes, Slight Dark Blue Tint Gregg
Gooper Blooper: I hope that wiki tells us about Gregg's personality
Ripple: I died to gregg?!?
Jumpropeman: the conker wiki does not appear to indulge in personality lists
Jumpropeman: "Gregg is very short (which Conker points out in the game when he dies for the first time) and speaks with an English accent. He despises cats (which have nine lives) and the Undead alike. Despite being the (or perhaps "a"?) Grim Reaper, Gregg is less than frightful."
Jumpropeman: however it is a fan of parenthetical statements

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Jumpropeman: why is doremy your least favorite hu goops
Modded Sheep: She knows what she did!
Jumpropeman: her last name is sweet
Jumpropeman: how can anyone hate her!
Gooper Blooper: Doremy is my least favorite hu because I regularly see her in a Yukari-esque holier-than-thou trolling role, AND the majority of that time she is focused specifically on going after Sumireko because of the whole "Sumi dreams to visit Gensokyo" thing and Doremy is all about that kind of stuff
Gooper Blooper: Now, those two things alone would be a rough tie with Yukari, but
Gooper Blooper: Yukari is cuter
Jumpropeman: but Doremy is covered in balls!
Modded Sheep: That IS true...
Modded Sheep: She IS covered in balls, Goops...
Modded Sheep: You CAN'T deny that she's covered in balls...
Modded Sheep has no idea who Doremy is

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RubyChao: you want me to edit my post to take out my stuff for your team, draco?
RubyChao: cause i'm cool with that
Gooper Blooper: As long as Yohane's attack is still "hacking" because I've already written that part
Jumpropeman: it's not just hacking
Jumpropeman: it's wheezing too!
RubyChao: i mean
RubyChao: yohane's attack options are basically
RubyChao: -Hacking
RubyChao: -Flopping
RubyChao: -Throwing Her Hair Meatball Somehow
RubyChao: so i think you're good

A New Era Dawns

"Good Evening. This is Slow Weather Jamz, your source for 24/7 weather coverage in, on, and around Olympia. Stay with us, and stay informed.

Here's your weather forecast for Tuesday, April 16."

All across Olympia, restaurants and homes and vehicles alike heard the sounds of the local forecast begin on their TVs and radios. It may be above the clouds, but there was still plenty to talk about regarding Olympia's weather. Temperature and wind speed, for starters, not to mention the city was subject to artificial rain at certain preplanned times to keep the decorative plants watered and to make the city feel a little more 'natural'. Of course, nothing about Olympia was natural. This city was schemed up in a board meeting years ago, and built from the ground up to one day be a flying spectacle. At last, that day had come.

But was the world ready for this? Had Olympia's time come too soon? Or was it time for the people of Earth to step forward into a bold new age of interplanetary alliances?

Power Play

-CENTRAL AMERICA-

-PACAYA VOLCANO NATIONAL PARK-

Pacaya Volcano. In 1965, it violently erupted, blanketing the earth with molten rock. Since then, it has remained quietly active, steadily unleashing a magma flow for decades. If there was ever a place for a dinosaur to live, this was it - at least, going by books old enough to have been published before the volcano blew its' top.

Gwangi surveyed his domain. For over three years, he and the Velociraptor known as Blue had lived here, free from the chaos of Las Vegas and the Neo Kobbers. They spent a lot of time in the lush jungles nearby, but they often returned to the volcano to explore and intimidate tourists. It was a strange life, but a safe one for monsters like them. They were joined by another former Neo Kobber, the giant mantis Spitfire. The three of them hunted in the jungles together, then spread out over the volcano to patrol their territory.

Today, their time here would come to an end.

It was Spitfire who detected the anomalous noise first. Her antenna twitched, and she held up a claw to stop Gwangi just as he was kicking off one of his territorial roaring displays. "Quiet. You hear that?" Blue cocked her head and listened carefully, chirping in surprise when she too heard the noise. It was a deep, low thrum, some sort of mechanical propulsion. Spitfire thought it sounded familiar, and tried to place it... ah, yes, now she remembered. It sounded like her old friend Captain Gordon's ship, the Gotengo. That flying battleship had a jet system on board that sounded similar to this. But that was the problem - similar. Not the same.

"...What is that?" Spitfire twiddled her mandibles in mild irritation at there being a question she didn't know the answer to. "Hang on, I'll get to the bottom of this." The three of them were at the fringes of the jungle, and unable to see past the canopy. Spitfire made short work of that problem, scuttling up a tree and reaching the top to peer into the sky.

It was then that she saw the airship approaching the park.