RikOz

I was amused to spot this fellow whilst collecting exploration badges in Siren's Call.

I named my most recent villain "Playa del Mal". It's a bilingual pun. Translated to English, it means "Evil Beach". I was inspired by this masterpiece from Italian comedy metal band, Nanowar of Steel, in which they combine the subject matter of Satanic Norwegian black metal with Latin/Caribbean party music:

The giant cape or banner at the top of the image is what's confusing it for me.

I may have shared this particular costume of my main, Flaminatrix, before, can't recall. I designed it as her "Incarnate" costume, and to make it stand out from her other costumes I departed from her usual red+orange color scheme and went white+gold. Then, yesterday, I realized she had not collected the Praetorian exploration badges aside from First/Night Ward, so off she went to Nova Praetoria. As soon as she arrived, I realized, OMG, this is the city this costume was made for. It just felt "right" for zipping around under Tyrant's nose. (Oh, she got all of the above ground and all of the Underground badges. That took something like an hour and a half...) (Oh #2 - As of yesterday as well, she finally has every single day job badge obtainable in Paragon City, First Ward, and the Shadow Shard.)

I'm doing something similar with one of my alts: Though that pic doesn't show the whole story, since it doesn't depict his stone armor. He's using the "Lava" armor, and I've recolored the powers to match the fist & eyes aura. Here's what he looks like with the second costume and toggles up:

And of course, if you didn't already know it, 'Aren't you a little old to be believing in leprechauns?' is the punchline to an old joke. Here's a "clean" version of the joke: Hennessy wasn't a very good looking fellow to start with. Now his business had failed, and his wife and family had left him. Depressed and distracted, he was standing near the edge of the bridge, contemplating suicide. Suddenly, he sensed that someone was behind him, and turning around he saw an ugly little old leprechaun. “Don't jump,” she said, and I'll grant you three wishes.” “Right,” he said. “my first wish is to have $100, 000. ” She said, “When you check your account, you will find that you are in credit to that amount. ” He then said, “My second wish is to have my wife and children back. ” She said, “They will be there when you get home. ” He said, “My third wish is to be tall and handsome. ” She said, When you look in the mirror, you will find that your wish has been granted. ” Then she added, “I want you to do something in return for me. I want you to kiss me. ” He looked at her and shuddered at the thought. But under the circumstances he thought he should do as she wanted. He took her in his arms and kissed her again and again. She said, “What age are you?” He replied, “I'm forty. ” She said, “Don't you think that you're a bit too old to be believing in leprechauns?” I also recently read a dirtier version that involved a "genie" rather than a "leprechaun", but was essentially the same joke.

I've noticed several NPC civilian lines like that. I've come to the conclusion that the original developers allotted a certain number of letters for those, and forgot to take into account the player characters' names using up some of that number. So they get cut off if the character's name contains more than a certain number of letters.

Newest costume for Li'l Spankee:

I particularly like this one! Broke out my "main", Flaminatrix to do some Ouro missions, because she hadn't seen much play lately (I'm up to 119 alts now and, well, they ain't gonna level themselves!) Finding that I still love the visual effect of the Spectrum body combined with multiple fire auras:

Group photo after completing the final mission of Dark Watcher's arc. Fusionette was being shy and wouldn't look at the camera.

Gravedigger Striker: This primo goods, yes? Death Head Gunner: This is crap.

Ah, there's the problem. The server is trying to PvP you.

Just a note: I'm aware that the Mortician badge can be obtained in other locations. My bug report is merely to call attention to an issue with one specific location.

Yup, I check for the icon as well. Just logged in a third alt that had been standing in the graveyard water for 14 days. Same thing, no badge. I reported a similar problem a couple years ago with AE buildings - if you're on the upper floor where the portal is, you can't stand up against the windows. You have to stand a couple yards back from the window for the Architect icon to appear. More recently I've noticed that the icon doesn't appear if you're on the ground floor. In Pocket D, the Clubber icon disappears if you go out to the Ski Chalet, and doesn't reappear when you come back inside to the dance floor. But for that one, you still get the day job progress.

Just ran across this today. Two separate characters (so far) today, logged out for 14 days each in the Striga graveyard, standing in the water (one of the "ponds" in the middle of the cemetary), received no progress, at all, toward the "Mortician" day job badge. The Mortician day job icon was showing, indicating these characters were logged out in the appropriate location. Other characters, also working toward Mortician, but logged out standing on the grass or on the roof of a mausoleum, have been awarded the Mortician badge. It appears that, for whatever reason, logging out standing in the water doesn't grant progress.

Exactly my reasoning :D

Funbot 5000, not looking the least bit ominous:

That reminds me of some random Legacy Chain guy in The Hollows telling his partner how eager he is to visit Atlas Park again, because they have this marvelous dish there called "taco". I think that was what first made me wonder where those guys are from. In Pocket D, near the monkey cage: Joe Young: This cage works out a lot better than the barrels did. I think that's a barrel of monkeys joke, but not sure.

I liked the lighting here: This Arachnos disguise is perfect! They'll never suspect I'm working for Longbow! I always enjoy accidentally hitting those spots where the lighting and geometry glitch out.

So, my "baby" sister designed this: ... and I had to recreate the character in-game: (Empathy/Sonic Attack defender)

I found a new one to autocomplete on future characters: The Sister Solaris part of the DA arc; the finale(?) where you have to fight your way through multiple spawns of multiple Boss-level monsters in Cimerora. I successfully completed that one on my first Incarnate character, but she's a fire/fire/fire blaster. She was able to stay airborne and fight at range, mostly out of danger from most of the monsters. She's also the one that soloed Marchand's entire arc in Brickstown at level 35. My second incarnate character to go through the whole DA story was my dual blades/SR scrapper. Yeah, she wasn't soloing crowds of giant Bosses. I tried, oh how I tried. But it just wasn't happening. So I'll be autocompleting that particular mission on most future alts, particularly melee alts.

I did something similar with my Jamaican fire/fire scrapper, Hotstepper. Rainbow fire, mon!

My first defender, Golden Rocket Frog (Poison/Water Blast)!

Okay, I went ahead and resurrected Sunkiss, though I had to name her Sunsweet because somebody had taken her old name *glances around suspiciously* I got her first six costumes designed (which is five more than I designed for the original character), and this is the one I like best:

After the shutdown announcement on live, I frantically went to work getting as many screenshots as I could of all of my costumes so that, in the unlikely event the game somehow came back, I would be able to accurately recreate; them. And whaddayaknow? I've resurrected many of those original characters, but there are still a lot that haven't made a comeback (yet). I mean, I only got to play on live for a year, but I still managed to roll 93 characters, so there were a good chunk of them that never made it past level 5. But I thought I'd dig through those old folders of screenshots and share some of my "live" characters that have not yet reincarnated. Dani J: Jazmyn Teagarden: Crimson Crosshair (I was surprised a few months ago to spot another player (on Everlasting) who had independently come up with the same name): Icex: Redmark: Winnow: Lady Generator: Mr. Stick: Veronica Valiant: Cerebolt: Lifecircle: Tora: Cuttie Cutie: Tae Kwon Dori: Chowderhead: Green Piece: Iyzebel: Kinkali: Sunkiss: Solar Sail (I may have created this one at the same time as Sunkiss): There are more, but I thought these were some of the more notable designs that I haven't yet redone in HC.