F Zero X Character roster

Lately, I've been playing a lot of F Zero X for Nintendo 64.

It's a grand old racing game, with a massive cast of thirty wierd-looking comic-book-style chaacters. In most cases I don't know their real names, and I don't believe any kind of biographies are given in the game.

All I do know is - a lot of them look silly. And when I'm trying to race I find it impossible not to stare at the little portraits in the top 5 and come up with nicknames for them.

So, without further ado...

Buch's guide to the characters of F Zero X!

1 ) Dr Zoidberg
Dr Zoidberg, formally a local MD based in interplanetary deliveries, has fallen on hard times recently. He now races the F Zero circuit in an attempt to afford an operation to remove the cucumber from his nose.


2) Those Guys From The Star Wars Cantina Scene
One of them doesn't like you, and the other one doesn't like you either. They're wanted men! They have the death sentence on twelve systems! And so on.



3) Angry Father Christmas
This year nobody left him a glass of sherry on the mantelpiece. A life long alcoholic, Santa is now forced to go cold turkey, and he takes out his frustrations on his fellow F Zero racers.


4) Captain Falcon
A former crowd favourite, the Captain is doing poorly of late. His driving is fine, but every single race, without fail, one of the other racers will knock him off the side of the track, crying "Falcon Kick!" and laughing as they speed away. Every single time.


5) Captain Palette-Swap
Push the button, Max!



6) Temuera Morrison
After so many years stuck in the role, New Zealand-born actor Temuera is now convinced he IS Jango Fett. With this in mind, he races around F Zero in a replica Slave 1. Nobody minds him.

7) Jodie Summer AKA Brunette Samus
My favourite character. I have nothing mean to say about her. Curiously, she normally has brown hair.



8) The Most Boring Character
I dunno. He smiles, he wears a red helmet. Be honest - you haven't got anything either.



9) The Cruel Wizard Wrath-Amon
That's more like it! Wrath-Amon is the leader of the Evil Serpent Men, who are from another dimension and will reveal their true form if you attack them with Star Metal.



10) Mister Hyde
Mister Hyde likes to tell people that he is the famous literary character of the same name and alter-ego to Doctor Jekyll. In fact he's just a very ugly man with the surname Hyde.


11) Badly-Disguised Cylon
This unfortunate double agent still thinks nobody has noticed his infiltration into the F Zero ranks.


12) E Honda
Us Japanese fighters gotta stick together. CUZ WE'RE BROTHERS! HA HA HA HA!


13) Utahraptor
Most famous for his appearances in Dinosaur Comics - Utahraptor is seen here in panel 5.



14) I Have No Idea
I originally had a dirty joke here, but I decided it was too crude. Make up your own story for this fella.


15) The Cat
It's Danny John Jules from Tv's Red Dwarf, now racing in a desperate effort to regain the credibility he lost in the recent three part special.



16) Female, Black Character
That ought to mollify that demographic. Next!



17) The Noid
Avoid him. Or better yet, knock his car over the edge of the track, just killing him once and for all. Should the opportunity present itself, please finish what Adam West started.


18) Super Arrow
After Jodie Summer (#7), easily my favourite character. I just love the completely serious expression on his face despite the hat, and the even more serious expression on the bird. God, I wish the bird was also wearing a hat with huge wings, and maybe a letter B. In the game, his suit is bright red, which makes him even funnier looking.
I love this guy.


19) Doctor Smugman
The good doctor is a leading light in the field of centre-partings, and tirelessly seeks to perfect a cure for hereditary smugness.


20) Foetoid
Remember Foetoid? From the game Forsaken?
Sure you do. Foetoid, ladies and gentlemen.



21) Mister Creosote
Hercule Poirot, the great Belgian detective, stretches all his little grey cells as part of his continuing investigation at the F Zero tracks. Finally after sifting all the evidence, he gathers all the other racers together in the drawing room to... oh shit, it's Mister Creosote.


22) The Troll
The Troll lives underneath the Rainbow Road track and, when not racing, demands tolls from other racers trying to practice. He is sick of people calling him 'Krang' and he does not know what they are giggling about.

23) Mrs Arrow
This attractive young lady has the extraordinary misfortune of being married to Super Arrow (#18). She is never seen without her signature sunglasses, onto the backs of which she has glued a photograph of a less ridiculous-looking man.


24) Fake Cosplay Fox McCloud
FCFMcC likes to pretend he is Fox McCloud from the Starfox games. To this end he has modelled his car to look like an Arwing and dresses like his hero at all times. At the end of each race he calls, "All aircraft report!" while the others either ignore him or loudly insist that he do a barrel roll.


25) Lobotomised Starwolf
After being trounced by arch nemeses Starfox too many times, Starwolf needed serious brain surgery to recover his injuries. Unfortunately he came out rather less intelligent, but he continues to spend his life behind the wheel, albeit the wheel of an F Zero car. Fake Cosplay Fox McCloud (#24) likes to hang around and provoke him between races.

26) The Cryptkeeper
Hello boys and ghouls! Tonight's terrifying tale concerns F Zero racing! He he he he he! I call this nauseating number... Driven... to DEATH!!
In recent years the Cryptkeeper has lost his hair.


27) Handsome Jack AKA Not Tom Paris
This handsome young chap spends so much time preening himself in the rear-view mirror that he has yet to actually start an F Zero race. He seems happy enough.



28) Michael Chain
Michael Chain is only a part time racer. During the week he teaches Art History at Stanford University, and campaigns tirelessly against racial stereotyping. Also - Michael's car looks like a big orange toast rack.


29) Captain Picard
Nobody knows what this gentleman's real name is because everyone is so used to calling him 'Captain Picard'. He hates it, and even got a tattoo on his head, just to make him look less like the famous TV character. The irony is that if he didn't get so annoyed every time, they'd stop calling him that. After hours, he likes to hang around with Handsome Jack (#27) so they can discuss how they are totally NOT Captain Picard and Tom Paris, respectively.



30) Doc Brown
F Zero tracks? Where we're going we don't need... F Zero tracks...

15 Fun Fanfic Facts

This evening I have set myself the task of educating you with a select fifteen titbits of my fanfiction-related knowledge!

Sit back, dear reader, and prepare to be educated.

---

1) Fanfic is short for 'Fan Fiction' - often inaccurately written as 'Fanfiction', for instance in the title of this blog, and on Fanfiction.net.

2) The term 'fan fiction' itself derives from the Greek fanaticum fictatas, which translates literally to 'Writing yourself into Wrath of Khan'.

3) In the famous fic 'Doom: Repercussions of Evil', many people miss the famous, deceptive and subtle twist. It's that John is the demons.

4) There are currently 78 fanfics in the world. Over 50 are about Twilight.

5) To qualify as 'fanfic', a story must contain at least three spelling errors.

6) Successful, published fanfic authors include Dan Brown, who for several years has been writing excellent Dan Brown fics.

7) 99% of fanfiction stories are written on Microsoft Word.

8) Fanfic writers are unnaturally attached to reviews. In some cases, they have been known to slip into comas after prolonged periods without any reviews. It is possible to revive these cases by repeatedly saying "I LOL'd" in a reassuring voice.

9) The earliest known fanfiction was a drawing of two antelope found on a cave wall in Argentina. It bears a striking similarity to another, more famous image on a nearby cave, but in this one the antelope are having sex.

10) Famous, secret fanfic writers include Mike Tyson, Germaine Greer and Abraham Lincoln, who wrote a short Silk Spectre II/Rorschach piece on the back of the Gettysburg Address.

11) A recent study found that crossover fics are all rubbish.

12) The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'Fanfiction' as, "Absolutely not. No. Tell Charles there is no way in Hell I'm allowing a contraction of a made-up phrase beginning with a seperate contraction - and used to describe something that my own nerdy cousin, who still lives with his parents at 42, finds uncool and beneath him - into the Oxford English Fucking Dictionary. - Ed."

13) Fanfic was often written on long sea voyages to pass time. During the Napoleonic Wars, there was a slew of Nelson/Hardy slash, inspired by the rumours.

14) The popular fanfic term 'Mary Sue', meaning an unrealistically wonderful protagonist, is named after Mary Sue Jonsson, a nurse who travelled across the United States rewarding skilled and underappreciated fanfic authors with cookies and thank-you cards during the 1950's. To this day she is revered almost as a patron saint.

15) Writing and reading fanfiction is really good fun, and not nearly as nerdy as people think. It's creative and it helps writers improve. There are hundreds of wonderful stories online for free. Have a look at FF.net.