Template:Gazette34

The big project I've been working on this past week is an image-based template for every page that's ever been featured. Feel free to use it any pages of yours that get featured.

The next Support Group meeting is next Saturday, January 21st, at 9PM EST over on the BTFF EX chat.

With a new year upon us and the end of the Christmas season finally over and done with, the wiki has adopted a new theme based on the blue and green color scheme of the reboot. Say what you want about the reboot's art style overall, but I do think it has a nice command of colors at the very least. If you're wondering what's up with the background, it's an imitation of last year's background designed to look like a lime and aqua double helix.

I've started making badge art for pages that are fairly iconic but have art too outdated to be used on badges. This should open up a lot of freedom for pages that can be featured on badges, so be sure to bring up anything that comes to mind, and make sure to check out the list of badges that still need replacing.

Controversial opinion time here, everyone: I actually like the Ben 10 reboot. I'm not saying it doesn't have glaring, glaring flaws that annoy me somewhat, but I still find it enjoyable. I think it might actually be easier for me to sum up my opinions on the reboot in bullet point format.

Cons
Starting out with this because there are a lot.
 * The art style bugs me. It does at least let the actual movement of the animation look smooth, unlike a lot of other low-budget reboots these days, but it still looks like crap.
 * The voice actor choices are confusing at best. They replaced literally everyone except Tara Strong and I don't know why. None of the new voices seem to fit especially well, and Stinkfly's voice is just outright horrendous.
 * Speaking of Stinkfly, he's complete shit in the reboot and I'm glad he's the least-used alien. He's way weaker than his OS counterpart, his design is generic, and his voice is one of the most grating things I've ever heard.
 * The writing can feel very awkward at times. It never feels like they're pandering too hard to the "hip kid" demographic, which I am eternally grateful for, but they do like getting closer to that threshold than I'm comfortable with.
 * The way they handle the OS villains they bring over is annoying. We're given no proper introductions to them, and they're honestly just kind of boring.

Pros

 * They did at least keep Tara strong as Ben, thank god.
 * I do think Upgrade looks neat in purple and Overflow's design is pretty good.
 * Speaking of colors, like I mentioned earlier, the reboot has a nice grip on how to use them properly, making it a bit easier to look at than UAF/OV's EVERYTHING MUST BE YELLOWISH GREEN ALL HAIL OUR VAGUELY PISS-COLORED OVERLORDS
 * The humor is pretty funny sometimes, I must admit.
 * There's an episode that takes place in an IKEA where Four Arms uses babies as projectiles and honestly if you don't think that's one of the best things put to television get out of my face.
 * The new villains they introduce can be kinda fun. Steam Smythe is a steampunk-themed villain that values the past over the present, so seeing him fight Ben's Omnitrix aliens, especially Upgrade, is sorta neat. Lord Decibel is a villain I appreciate for just how over-the-top he is. He's got a good design imo and his gimmick of using sound is fun. I don't know if he's recurring villain, but I hope he ends up being one just because of how fun he is to watch.
 * Speaking of Lord Decibel, the episode he debuted in actually didn't have a lot of comedy in it. Some of the episodes are less comedy-based than others, and the show can actually end up being interesting when they do drop the comedy for a bit.

Overall, is it a great show? Not by any means, no, but it's not bad, either. If you're looking for OS 2, you're gonna be disappointed, but judging the reboot purely by what it is instead of as part of a franchise that crashed and burned a couple years back, it's honestly one of the better cartoons on CN nowadays. Granted, that's mostly because a lot of CN's lineup is crap, but still.

The Featured Article this week is Gold Digger (STBM) by Omi. Gold Digger is the second episode of Simien 10: Blood Monkey, and while I wouldn't say it's the best thing you'll ever read on this wiki, it's pretty damn solid, so I'd recommend checking it out.

No ads this time around. Make sure to put anything you want advertised in this forum thread.



Art Corner

Snow Bear= Snow Bear Badge Design

By ChromastoneandTabby

Featuring three pieces of art this time around because fight me it's my newsletter.

Anyways, this is the first piece of badge art for older pages I've created.  Snow Bear  has always been kind of iconic among ice aliens, so it seemed only fitting to have him on a badge.

Also I wanted to use a crappy bear pun so again fight me Crystal Days Redesign
 * -|Crystal Days=

By ChromastoneandTabby

I wasn't really happy with the original Crystal Days design, so I turned it into something closer to the original design for Chromastone. Bronzoon Redesign
 * -|Bronzoon=

By ChromastoneandTabby

Yeah, the first version of this thing was made in 2011 back when I was in my massive Pokemon phase, so it was inspired by Bronzong. Sue (12 year old) me.

This version of Bronzong is actually based on its very first redesign, which was initially created to be used in the first version of  Tech 10: Rebooted . Which never actually happened. Ah well.

CN release a video supposedly telling the "origin story" for the Reboot, but really, it's nothing we didn't already know. It's just a compilation of clips from episodes that have already been released, but I'll put it here in case you want to check it out anyways.

Well, that's it for this Sunday, folks. I hope you enjoyed the thirty-fourth issue of The CaT Gazette, and I'll see you next week! Feedback and support are appreciated!