====== SSMAS Issue 454 ======


===== BRIK TO THE FACE =====

WOW! You gotta try this stuff!  Brikquid is the hot new drink hitting the arena stands like a brik to the face.  It's all that you'd expect of a brick-based drink, and more!  Who wants those puny drinks that you don't even need to chew, anyway?

===== CUDDLY DOUGHY DOUGHBALLS =====

Who would be seen without one of these cute fellas boinging around on their keychain? Hang it off your handbag, stick it on your coat, wear it like an eyepatch, it's ALL GOOD with this squidgy little toy around!

===== [BAD STAR] TAKES THE CITY BY STORM! =====

Can we just //talk// about [BAD STAR] for a second? I think I speak for us all when I say I am JEALOUS of that Gladiator Omega - she looked absolutely friggin' ASTOUNDING at that match. [BAD STAR] is FIERCE, and I will be forever drooling over her designs. 

===== FAN COMPETITION =====

APPLE WAS ROBBED. 

I mean. Who is this Maximum Taste guy, anyway? I hear there's all kinds of nasty stuff going on behind the scenes at Monster House. Suuuure, everyone and their mother wants to eat there now, but what's REALLY so impressive about creating a huge, lifelike, delicious sculpture of Volcanosaurus out of batter and frosting alone? 

More importantly, what is he hiding? 

===== HEEL-FACE TURN FOR TEAM LEGIT? =====

So, it looks like the Fangzine got the scoop on this one: Team Legit are actually, like, //legit// now! Who'd have thought? Khaos, apparently - whose interview with Midnight has been described as 'surprisingly full of nuance' and 'a complex picture of an equally complex woman'. 

A whole bunch of people are claiming this is some cynical PR stunt, and that High Noon and Midnight will be back to whining about their losses and jeering their opponents in no time. Still, our sources beg to differ: apparently, they accepted the result of their latest match in a manner that can only be described as weirdly chill. 

Are they actually working //for// their fans now? Are we supposed to be rooting for them? 

Who knows. Anything could happen. Maybe they'll actually even win something one of these days! 

===== NOTS OF THE SEASON SO FAR =====
Who is in the pits? Who is the worst heel - accidentally? Who's the villain we actually //don't// love to hate? **Who is so far down the HOT LIST that they've broken Amendment 1075?**

===WORST TRAINERS SO FAR===

  - HAAAA NOON, as he says - something interesting going on there, do Wasteland roots give this feeble excuse of a Trainer a rough purchase? Not only did he forfeit the mach against Dozer, but did he do it in STAAAAL? //DID HE?// No! Can't even give us a good anticlimax! The Network had to step in with their own house Monster. You know you're dull if the //Network// covers your ass. 
      - If any of us on the publishing team were his partner Midnight, we'd drop him from Team Legit so fast he couldn't say YEHOR*. 
      - His Monster can fight decently, given the chance - look at the Team Legit vs Team Slime fight, which went well because HAAAA NOON was only //one-quarter// of the contestants. Shame. Someone should take that dangerous mechanical beast off him and replace it with Optizorb.
    - Maaaaaaybe TACKLE?? I know he's still popular, don't sue me! I just read that he's just a cranky sore loser who needs to get a life. Or wait, was it BLOCK we're supposed to hate? Wasn't there some conspiracy about sabotage going on there...? I don't really care but I do know that they didn't fight this round and that's BORING.

===WORST MONSTERS SO FAR===
    - The Indestructosphere.... haha.... The Indestructosphere - but does that really need to be said?! 
      - Rumours have it that its Trainer Void is looking to replace the puny little glowball with a Monster that can do //actual// damage.
     - That **frikkin' horrible Hedgehog**. Now, we like a good bellow as much as the spectator next door, and a good bellow while a metal dragon bites the spines off your back, we can totally get behind! //But//, when that bellow turns into a shriek that hurts even ears at the top of the Arena, that is //not entertaining//. 
       - SSMAS CAN REVEAL.... That not only one, but //two//, of the handlers that had to drag that banshee-ball out of the pit have gone utterly //deaf// since.
       - Remember that super friendly House Monster from last season, the Jigglerbloa? The one that bounced along on two hindlegs, with the waffly nose and, oh yeah, the special defence move of //enhanced hearing//? 
       - Poor Jigglerbloa was in the pens under the Arena when siren-spine started attacking all that is aural.
       - They still haven't brought it round.
       - My daughter has a pen with a bouncy Jigglerbloa on the end.
       - We'd like to send a message loud and clear to its owner: //shut that thing up//.
    
   
This list //would've// included Dozer, for obvious reasons. But instead of being the snooze we were all expecting, it really woke up (and put to rest a whole pile of sleep-based puns I had prepared) in its Championship fight versus the House Monster!


//*Sp? - Ed.//

===== DARK STEAL MY HEART =====

I'd just like to take a moment to rectify something that was written in Issue 453: I did not //faint// just because Blade looked at me, I fainted because Blade //glowered// at me.  There's a //difference//, I'll have you know, and he'd just come out of THE BEST FIGHT EVER: did you //see// Heavy Metal versus Team Loom?  They put those woolly losers DOWN, right?  And DARK STEEL: SO EVIL.  SO SO EVIL.  I just can't get enough of those BLADES and that LOOK and how he PRETENDS to care but I //KNOW// that deep down he's just like me: a tortured soul: just look at how he became the //antihero// we deserve when fighting the EVIL KRYSTALKORPION, that's just like me.  Dark Steel is who I want to be.  That's why I've changed my name to Darkness, by the way, from Radiator.

- Darkness


===== SPROCKET, SERIOUSLY =====

Real talk, folks. Is there anyone who isn't, like, blown off their feet by hir homespun sense of style? Those hand-drawn posters! That can-do attitude, even though we're really not too sure what zie CAN do! Those sick stunts! NYOOMIE. Just. Gah. So many good things. 
===== SUPER COOL PEOPLE =====
ohhhhhhh my stars can we just appreciate the gladiators of this season please??????? SO. FUCKING. COOL.

like. omega. OMEGA. OMIGOSH OMEGA. that ARMOUR. the MANEUVERS. the SPEECH. 10/10 A+ TOP SHIT RIGHT THERE.

and strike. okay, yeah, he won against giant block of wood, but did you see his interview with decibel? he's so stoic and cool and he fought really hard against the tent and aaaaaaaa he's so great

and then angler. AWESOME MONSTER. AWESOME GLADIATOR. every time he spins that trident around it's like. omigosh. how are you so cool. 

aaaaaaaaaaaa i love them all i hope the network really does let them run for champion i wanna buy all their merch

===== GO AWAY WHOEVER YOU ARE =====

it's so RUUUUUUUUDE standing outside shouting about monsters and like COME ON, this stopped being fashionable 20 seasons ago: we all know monsters LIKE fighting each other and that's just a fact.  you're not being subversive or clever you're just annoying.  0/10. 

//Editorial comment:// 
EXACTLY. What, have Security forgotten how many entrances there are to the Arena? Ask her to move from one, and she pops up at another.
 

Someone needs to take that well-fattened, delicious looking pig Monster off her and get it to MAX TASTE'S MONSTER HOUSE for a taste of //how the real world works.//