Template:Gazette52

The page for Tech 10: Star Legacy is up, giving a basic synopsis of what you can expect from the movie when it releases (probably sometime this summer but no promises).

Heatblast Fest is wrapping up tonight. Sure seems like it flew by pretty quickly!

I've started making badge art for pages that are fairly iconic but have art too outdated to be used on badges.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.

As it turns out, eating half a tub of sherbet, a box of crackers, a package of cookies, some potato sticks, and two servings of chicken curry all in a row will apparently give you indigestion. I don't even know why I ate that much. I'm usually lucky if I can make myself finish three meals a day. If I was a girl I'd say I was on my period but as it is seriously what the hell.

Lesson 8: Overpowered Characters

Picture this for a moment, if you will: you're sitting around watching Ben 10: Omniverse because you're a masochist, and you're watching the episode where Ben uses Alien X to unnecessarily wreck the brainwashed Amalgam Kids instead of just freeing them from the brainwashing. It's at this point that you realize something:

Nothing is really much of a threat anymore.

Sure, Ben's a dumbass, so he's definitely not going to take advantage of this, but with an alien that has the ability to reshape reality on a whim under his control, he could theoretically win any fight he wants to with a single thought. Sort of takes the tension out of the story, doesn't it?

This is a writing mistake that's proficient both on and off the wiki, but it's gotten to the point where the majority of series have an overpowered protagonist. Whether it be from a bunch of OP Omnitrix aliens or some other power of their own, reading about these protagonists is rarely engaging simply because the tension has been taken out of the story. When your character is incompetently overpowered, there's very little that can present a legitimate threat to them.

Of course, that's not to say you can't write an overpowered character well, or even that all extremely powerful characters are necessarily overpowered. If you're familiar with Tech 10 in any way, that would obviously be a hypocritical point for me to make. Here are a few tips to properly handle powerful characters and keep tension in the story. All in all, you should try to steer clear of making your characters overpowered if you don't have any balancing factors to keep their conflicts interesting. Master this, and congratulations! You're automatically a better writer than anyone on the Omniverse staff!
 * Keep Things Balanced - If your heroes are super powerful, you should make your villains at least as powerful (preferably even more so). If you have side characters you want to keep relevant, they should be getting some sort of power boosts too. You could technically keep jacking up the power levels as much as you want as long as you keep the story properly balanced while doing so. Basically just don't make anyone Krillin and you'll be gucci.
 * Emotionally Kneecap the Hero - Giving your protagonists emotional baggage is not only a great way to keep people invested in general, but it also helps to keep their powers from ruining the story. Giving them some reason not to use their power, usually in the form of some emotional trauma related to the power itself.
 * Make it Unpredictable - If the hero has no proper control over their overpowered abilities, then it keeps said abilities from ruining the story (kinda like how Alien X didn't break the franchise until Omniverse...). These abilities could do anything from just failing at the wrong times to going out of control and destroying everything around the hero, making them a liability to use.
 * Rock, Paper, Scissors - This is a pretty basic concept, but it's surprising how often it goes unutilized; you can give your character the biggest, best laser cannon you can think of, but if his opponent has an anti-biggest, best laser cannon shield, it ain't gonna do them any good. Your character can have any OP ability you want as long as there's someone who can counter it.

(No I'm not letting that go shut up)



Art Corner

Tech= Tech (Rebooted) Redesign 1

By ChromastoneandTabby

A redesign for the first outfit Isaac "Tech" Logical wears in Tech 10: Rebooted. The last art I made for this design was in like 2014, so I figured it was more than ready for an update. Anti-Life Entity Paint/Sketch
 * -|Anti-Life Entity=

By ChromastoneandTabby

Took a shot at paint/sketching the Anti-Life Entity. Fire Hazard
 * -|Fire Hazard=

By ChromastoneandTabby

A fusion of Heatblast and Water Hazard I created for Heatblast Fest. He can shoot some basic fire (albeit not as well as Heatblast), create some basic water (though not as much as Water Hazard), and can create and control dank-ass geysers like nobody's business.

Nothing to report this week.

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