The Great Stuntroo

     I am the Great Stuntroo. I am a Blumaroo. I do stunts.

     Yes, stunts, you know. Impersonating an actor during scenes that could be dangerous, just like in those films at Movie Central - except that I'm the only Blumaroo who does it in games. The most skilled, the most requested on the gaming market. The greatest.

     No other Stuntroo could be painted Jelly and emerge unscathed from the Jelly lava rivers when the wannabe hero's knees are trembling at the thought of feigning a miscalculated jump. OK, Jelly World is fictional (or at least that's what I've always been told), those are not jelly mountains but actually a background, but rest assured that the lava is boiling even if it's not made of jelly, the studios for Bouncy Supreme are located in Moltara. Everybody can jump off a cliff and fall into the safety net placed somewhere above the hot river, but only this Stuntroo can do it without bouncing back into the visible screen or bending the net too much - some have tried, some found themselves with a scorched tail at the Neohospital. And anybody else would name you crazy if you asked them to be brutally taken away in the beak of that big Pterodactyl: but I'm the Great Stuntroo, and I've done it so many times that I made friends with that beast, we even share the same taste for spicy Borovan.

     Not impressed? Then what if I said that in more of the 75% of the time you think you see Aristotle A. Alvinroo during a Dungeon Dash game you're actually watching my athletic silhouette? What, you really didn't believe that a nerdy sedentary gamer could jump all the way like that, did you? No, no, my friend, most of those scenes involve just myself, a pair of 3-D glasses and a pale brown wig. The brat is there only for running on safe trails, complaining about being tired, and taking all the glory. It's his name you can see on the posters, I think I'm not even mentioned in the credits, but I don't mind, I know I'm doing a great job and that's enough for me - also because people in the gaming business know my skill too, and that means lots of Neopoints for this humble Blumaroo.

     How did I begin, you ask. Well, I've always been kinda reckless, as my mom always says. So when a job offer for daring Blumaroos appeared one day on the Neopian Times, I showed up in Meridell to see if it could suit me well. They painted me blue (at the time one of the gaming stars was this blue Blumaroo) and put me under a tree with a stick in my paws, when suddenly a puppet shaped like a Darigan Eyrie fell from the tree right in front of my nose: I automatically hit it with the stick. Guess what? the game producers said that mine were the best reflexes they had ever seen, that I was hired and that my job would have been protecting the precious head of that blue Blumaroo by taking his place in the scenes where the puppet dropped from above. Not much of a stunt, sure, but it was a starting point.

     Later I discovered that there already was a Blumaroo performing stunts in Deckswabber and my role should have been assigned to him, but the stupid production guys thought he was too old to have two parts. I liked the old guy, so when he finally retired and I was asked to take his place in Deckswabber, I remembered that I kinda swindled a role that should have been his, and I said that he was not replaceable. The game was then fully redesigned for a Gnorbu... go figure that out.

     Uh? no, no, I only do Blumaroos' roles, and every Stuntpet usually works only on his own species' jobs. A normal actor can be morphed in whatever colour and species is needed, for example the Mynci in Coal War Tactics and the Lupe playing Balthazar in Extreme Herder are the same Neopet... and he's a Wocky. But, you know, stunts are dangerous: you must be really skilled and have a perfect control of your body, since an uncertain movement can lead you to the Neohospital faster than saying "Meepit". Even if I drank a Koi morphing potion, it would take years to master a Koi's swimming ability: if I tried to do the tricks that the good old Stuntkoi performs in Raiders of Maraqua, I'd probably end up flattened by a moving rock. And if my Aisha friend who plays double for Abigail in Dungeon Dash tried to do the same stunts for AAA once morphed into a Blumaroo, most likely her tail would make her trip and fall in the clumsiest way. Every 'Pet has his own abilities: Blumaroos bounce, Jetsams swim, Buzzes fly, Aishas move in absence of gravity: the most difficult stunts can be done only by somebody who's perfectly fit for that role.

     Yes, there are a few actors who like to perform their stunts themselves, but it's most uncommon... let me think, Bruno does not need a Stuntgelert, for example. There's a Stuntusul for Hannah now, even if she could made it all alone... it's a matter of workload: she could not manage Pirate, Ice and Kreludor caves while keeping her bartender job, so she preferred to let go of some of the scenes in the games. This allowed her to get an extra easy part on Wardrobe of Adventure, though. Oh, and obviously Faeries do all the work themselves, but they naturally emerge unscathed from those Cloud Racers crashes, why should they need a Stuntfaerie?

     New games? That sounds difficult. I could probably manage another part, after all I'm the great Stuntroo, and at the end of the day I would still have enough energy for a new project. It is always simpler when you love your job. But I think that the game industry should focus on new solutions, instead of resorting to the usual characters - you know what I mean, why adding another Aisha- or Blumaroo-based adventure when there is not a single Hissi working in the field? I personally know at least a couple of talented candidates for a Stunthissi position, and instead of making use of their skills, they have to settle on picking up the vegetables thrown by that punk Wocky after they've gone off-screen in Extreme Potato Counter. That's not fair, I say.

     *cough* *cough* *splut* sorry, did you just say "retiring"? Kid, I have a huge mansion on Mystery Island and I plan to spend my last years drinking iced slushies while looking at romantic sunsets, but before that I have to pay the mortgage, and to be honest I enjoy too much my job to leave it! I'm still too young to stop feeling reckless, you know?

     Oh, you heard them calling, didn't you? Better come into action then, AAA needs to jump over that crate. Or at least, this is what oblivious players must think! Ha ha! See ya, my boy, it's time for the Great Stuntroo!

The End