Retro Fanfic Retrospective

One of us is an artist and all of us are fans of something, so that qualifies us to talk about fanart, right? It's kind of like fanfiction, except it's a picture. Sounds innocuous, but be careful - Della delivers a warning story about the deep rabbit hole of content consumption that a single piece of fanart can lead to.

It's time to unleash the Swords of Revealing Light (of 2023) on the genre-setting parody fandub, Yu-Gi-Oh! the Abridged Series. We are completely unable to summarize the plot of Yu-Gi-Oh!, so we ignore it in favor of circling around the types of jokes - which work, which don't work, and which are quite casually hateful. Della might have some new phrases to work into her conversation.   Link to the...

Della steps in to (spiritually) guide Amado and Tory through two short XXXholic fanfics from the late aughts. She needs to emphasize that the source material was NOT, in fact, all about the Watanuki/Doumeki romance. And that Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle was a different series.   Link to The Woolen Monstrosity: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4423737/1/The_Woollen_Monstrosity   Link to Dream a Dream: ht...

Wesley attempts to induct Inigo into a new line of work, but there are a few moral (and logistical) problems to work out first.   Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634336

Because we were all so good back in 2007, Yuletide brings us a little gem of a story exploring with great precision how much it sucks to be the Pevensie children. (Adults? Re-children?) Especially Susan, obviously .    Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2007/works/154341

We pick a story from fanfiction epic Mega Man: the Series, but rather than the eponymous Blue Bomber, this story focuses on his brother/housecat Break "Proto" Man. The author's commitment to their corpus is very impressive - almost as impressive as their ability to feel affection for Captain N: The Game Master, which Amado and Tory find mega-difficult. Link to the web site: http://mmhp.net/TheSeri...

If there's one thing we love more than actual fanfiction, it's navel-gazing about what does and does not count as fanfiction. If fanfiction is using other peoples' material without permission, who is allowed to give that permission? The author? The rights-holders? Your child self? The reincarnation of William Shakespeare? The fictional character Sephiroth, speaking to you from another dimension? D...

Kai and Sergio of the So You Think You Can Fanon podcast join us for a battle of the oceanic titans, as written by professional author C.L. Werner. Japan has a Deep One cult problem, but don't worry, your tax dollars are at work in trying to fix it.  Godzilla is ready to throw down with anyone who looks at him funny, up to and including a giant stone pillar. Cthulhu is a very sleepy space wizard....

In honor of that day where you can buy heart-shaped chocolate, we discuss the concept and practice of shipping. Is it shipping if we don't actually like the characters involved? How about if we're so goddamn basic that our ships are canon? And how do shipping containers fit into all this? (They fit into a cargo ship very well.)

Serena joins us on this Monday to talk about Wednesday, but not the Wednesday from Tim Burton's Wednesday , although you'd better believe we talk about that anyway. In the story, Wednesday must decide how to fulfill the honored traditions of her Nightshade ancestors... no, not the Nightshades from Wednesday ... look, the important thing is that Pugsley got buff, okay?   Link to the story: https://...

Gaelan returns to offer his expertise as an art therapist while we try to figure out how to provide therapy for "old Batman." We revisit "Only One Can Wear the Crown," a Batman Beyond fanfic, with Gaelan's new hot takes. Spoiler alert: he definitely thinks Bruce is gay for Dick--Dick Grayson, that is, what were you thinking? Tory fumbles a lot doing Amado's job and they didn't even have to find th...

We welcome back ChaosBlue of the Fanfic Maverick podcast, a true Fanfiction First Responder ready to jump into action to help in any fandom emergency.  A natural catastrophe pushes Jim's powers, and his relationship with Blair, into uncharted territory. Simon is our audience identification character in wanting those two to hook up. And the story puts forth the controversial thesis that people are...

At what point does "movie adaption" become fanfiction? Possibly when you double the number of Marleys and add a talking rat. Or maybe not, but that's not going to stop us from talking about the Muppets' first big foray into classic literature. Gonzo has more range as a dramatic actor than Amado thought. The Christmas Ghosts are the best one-shot Muppets ever.    The movie is available for viewing...

Tory, Amado, and Della (and don't forget Mark!) look back over their hastily-scribbled session notes about The Gamers, which might not be fan fiction but is definitely a fan project. And what they're fans of is goofing around with a bunch of your friends being low-key assholes to each other as your character fumble their way forward to an inevitable villain confrontation. The essence of roleplayin...

Telepathic homeless orphan high-school student Miki Segusa finds herself psychically linked to the King of the Monsters himself. Will they be able to relate to each other? Will Godzilla defeat the Flying/Psychic-type kaiju, Jagereth? Will the real treasure be the friends we made along the way? And will G-Force do anything useful? (In order: yes, yes, yes, no.)   Link to the story: https://www.fanf...

We plunge into the DCAU ass-backwards with two short Batman Beyond stories. In "Only One Can Wear the Crown," Bat "Bruce Wayne" Man reminiscences about how goddamn good Dick Grayson was at acrobatics. (Spoiler: very good.) In "Hope Is The Thing With Leather," Max finds herself drawn increasingly deeper into the bat-lifestyle, which is a great idea that nobody ever regrets.   Links to the stories:...

Anime Music Videos: the carefully-crafted works of transformative media that we watched in our youth, largely because downloading full episodes of anime off the internet was nigh impossible. Tory, Della, and Amado each pick a few AMVs to discuss, and somehow we don't hit any Evanescence songs. (We've got U2 and Linkin Park covered, though.) Amado tries to force his arbitrary categorization dichoto...

Soviet and/or Eastern European Planeteer Linka is transported to an alternate (?) future where she died five years ago, but her troubles don't end there - she'll need to survive a cruise ship full of villains, environmental devastation, Central Park, and maybe a Balrog if we're lucky. Also, romancing sad future Wheeler.   Link to the story: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2819108/4/Alternate-Destinat...

We continue to stretch the ambit of our podcast by discussing proto-Gainax's fan animations for the Nihon SF Taikai science fiction conventions. It's a kind of fanfiction, although the narrative that emerges is mostly "what if all of early-1980s sci-fi crashed into each other and exploded?" In the time it took you to read this, a woman dressed as a playboy bunny could already have beaten up Godzil...

In the wake of the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series, we return to Fernwithy's take on young Leia, the Alderaanean princess who is also a senator who is also the bio-kid of a fascist supervillain who used to be a child slave. Could it be that underneath Vader's cold shell is a deeply wounded man desperately seeking personal connection? Probably. Is any relationship with him going to end in horrible betraya...

Erstwhile fanfiction author and Arcade Spirits co-writer Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne joins us to talk through his background in anime fanfiction. There are plenty of digressions along the way, as we talk old anime fan culture, the utilization of nostalgia in fiction, and Stefan's one degree of separation from Bryan Lee O'Malley.   Link to the author's webfiction: stefangagne.com  Link to the Arcade S...

Sara B. rejoins us with a strong recommendation to the world of music RPF. In Liverpool circa 1958, John Lennon is a charismatic asshole, while Paul McCartney is less charismatic but also less of an asshole. Together, they make music and have outrageous chemistry together. Stuart Sutcliffe is also there. Everyone needs to be a lot nicer to poor George Harrison.   Link to the story: https://archive...

It's time to investigate a 100 year-old fanfic zine, with Vincent Starett's The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet (no, not like a small town). The author writes what he knows, and what he knows is bibliophiles. The more Sherlock moves like some kind of dog or spider, the happier we are. We expect more of Watson.   Link to the story: http://www.bestofsherlock.com/story/unique-hamlet-text.htm

Taran joins us, ready for a moderate amount of Ultraviolence, as we chat about the beginnings of the classic Improfanfic headliner, MTCFF Ultra. It's a wrestling-style gonzo megacrossover where Gambit, Dan Hibiki, Lina Inverse, and Shinji fight under the sponsorship of God Herself, Kasumi Tendo. But the real struggle is for each author to keep their predecessor's plot threads going.   Link to the...

Actual fanfiction writers OutHereNow and EveHypo555 of the Canon Divergent podcast join us to talk Buffy. Spike commandeers a company jet to deal with a crisis from his past in Italy. Italy is also where Buffy is half-heartedly sleeping with the hottest supernatural being on the continent. Could these two crazy kids get back together? Maybe it would be a good start if someone got around to telling...