Retro Fanfic Retrospective

We indulge ourselves in reminiscences about the voyage of discovery and exploration that was being an anime fan around the turn of the millennium. We remember the slow internet speeds, purple Kodocha Fansubs tapes, and inability to find any given volume of manga! Also, we had to walk to the anime con uphill, through the snow.

We return to an old favorite, armed with marginally more Xena: Warrior Princess knowledge than we had the first time around. Xena kills a very large man, Gabrielle tells fairy tales, and the two of them have sex together at LEAST three times.   bit.ly/rfrdragon

After more five years and 170 episodes of podcasting, Amado has finally written a full 1600 words of actual, genuine Magic School Bus fanfiction. And Tory and Della are ready to listen to it and try to serve as betas. Beta readers, I mean. You can't be too careful with the Omegaverse out there.   Link to the (slightly revised) story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57044551  

We return to Newgrounds (not to be confused with Newsgrounds, which is presumably a news site) to discuss the early fan animations of LegendaryFrog. Do they still hold up in 2024? And does it really matter, because dozens of lines from them are lodged in our middle school lizard brains either way? I'm looking at YOU, Aeris!   Link to the videos: https://legendaryfrog.newgrounds.com/

Seatbelts, everyone! Tory and Amado go on a magical journey to compare and contrast two Magic School Bus fanfics that have very different ideas about where the magic lies. Arnold may be the heart of the show. Mary Poppins makes a guest appearance.   Link to the stories: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4787280/1/What-Comes-After https://archiveofourown.org/works/296134

In this roundtable discussion episode our co-hosts discuss the 'why' of fanfiction. What could possibly drive these miscreants to produce such materials? We discuss things like fan culture, seeing yourself in characters and fiction, and creating spaces for exploration of unrepresented groups. Beverly Clearly would not approve. 

We make a two-night visit to the fandom of Kino's Journey to read "the nature of uncarved blocks." It's a short piece that explores Kino's transgender journey. (See what I did there?) We get sidetracked overanalyzing the use of parenthesis. Kino is Kino.   Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88265

Elite commando fanfic readers Della and Amado read a fancomic that skirts right up to the edge of being official but doesn't quite cross that line. Spartan sharpshooter Jun has some issues that he needs to work through. Della has some Halo lore to talk about. And most importantly, Covenant soldiers get blown up by some sticky grenades.   Link to the comic, where (and we cannot stress this enough) the PDF file is available from the lower-right corner of the page: https://leviathan.bungie.org/flip.html

The magic of Yuletide brings us this delightful pitch for a replacement for Alien 3, in which Ripley becomes a pirate, Hicks sells out, and it turns out the REAL facehugger was Capitalism all along.   Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310288

We try not to think about the Pocket Monsters we've left in the box for the last 20 years as we read a love story between a trainer and their huge flying bug with psychic powers. While we're at it, we argue over what happens to Pokemon while they're in their balls, and which interpretation is the most disturbing.   Link to the story: https://forums.serebii.net/threads/butterfree-one-shot-g.557311/

Tory and Amado went to see a play that is a fanfic, and now we talk about it! It's a retelling of Dracula where the REAL evil is patriarchy. And also, uh, vampires. Neither of those things are good.

The world is changed; we feel it in the cold, harsh light of 2024. But fear not: we swoop back in from our hiatus like eucatastrophic eagles to discuss the first section of Mordor apologia The Last Ringbearer. Aragorn and Gandalf are the worst, Saruman and the Nazgul are pretty cool, and Sauron is just some guy. Also, the author would like you to know that proper irrigation is essential for sustainable agriculture.     Link to the translation: https://archive.org/details/TheLastRingbearerSecondEdition

Due to a whole bunch of unforeseen circumstances we are gonna take a break for the rest of this year. We will come back sometime in early in the new year. In the meantime if you have comments, questions, or reading suggestions send us an email at retrofanficretrospective@gmail.com. Stay safe and see you in the cold harsh light of the 2024!

Della takes it upon herself to inflict a You Don't Know Jack style anime quiz from the early 2000s on her co-hosts.  Hilarity(?) ensues. All questions and answers are taken from Anime Trivia Quizbook Episdoe I by Ryan Omega, © 2000 Ryan Omega published by Stone Bridge Press. All original content used under fair use principles.  

Cookie Monster not just noted fan of baked goods, he also co-producer of Monsterpiece Theater. Now HBO asking for special spooky Christmas production, so Cookie and writing team go to pitch them ideas. Maybe this bring to head issues of equitable monster representation in media, and what Monsterpiece Theater mean to monster community. Or maybe they have Count star in production of Hamilton.   Link to story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466800

In accordance with our mystical premonitions (or at the request of a fan), we view a short and fluffy TomoSaku story. Teenage Sakura and Syaoran's relationship has ended, leaving Sakura to possibly confess her feelings to a new love. It still counts as confessing if you'd unwittingly recorded doing it by a matchmaking third party, right?   Link to the story: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/1169810/1/Caught-on-Camera

TW: childhood sexual abuse, questionable consent   We explore 80s slashfic's favorite manga, From Eroica With Love, the story of three psychic college students... actually never mind, it's about the chemistry between a fabulous art thief and a tank-loving NATO major. In our fanfic, that chemistry is brought to its culmination, with all the horrible and toxic results that one would expect from fandom.   Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41224?view_adult=true

Sara of Talkin' Fanfic returns to challenge our Dojo but an inadvertent team-up occurs when we decide to discuss Karate Kid fanfic instead. Tory and Della are perplexed by the intricacies of Cobra Kai fandom and we are all still hoping Ralph Macchio will disclose where he found that fountain of youth. Amado is still lost in the mists, but we hope his training goes well. https://twitter.com/TalkinFanfic https://fanfiction.net/s/739729/1/Backlashed

Special guest Communications Officer Taran returns to discover strange new worlds in the form of DeForest Kelley's three part poem, "The Big Bird's Dream."  Della (reluctantly) captains the ship and Tory still doesn't believe that Dr. McCoy's first name is Leonard. We discuss the relative merits of different Star Trek series and boldly go where many people have probably gone before. Link to All Three Poems: https://herethereandeverywhere2ndedition.blogspot.com/2006/06/7-years-ago-today.html

By Della's request, we jump into the expansive and fanfic-fertile Mass Effect universe. While Commander Sheperd (he/him) is off the ship doing one of the many Mass Effect 2 sidequests, the rest of the crew are left under the authority of Miranda Lawson, and must grapple with questions like Hey Wait, Are We Part of Cerberus Now? Will a bitter mutiny ensue, or will everyone talk it out like responsible adult lifeforms?    Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14314455/chapters/33028899

Unreasonably-cool phantom thief Carmen Sandiego has disappeared off the face if the earth... one might even say nobody knows where she is! Turns out she's lying low while raising her daughter. Being raised by Carmen Sandiego is as educational and harrowing as you might expect.   Link to the story: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6974921/1/Parthenogenesis

It's an explosion of initials as author P.H. Cannon crosses over H.P. Lovecraft and P.G. Wodehouse. There are all the expected Mythos references and jokes and Jeeves saving Bernie Wooster from his terrible fashion sense, but most importantly, Amado has an excuse to enthuse about Wodehouse.

Tory and Della are joined by the Fanfic Maverick, who kindly explains the Omegaverse, a sort of conceptual spawn of the Supernatural fandom that originated around 2011 and is therefore almost retro. I would describe it as kind of a second layer of gender coding that can be applied over our traditional gender coding, and that's exactly why you should listen to the Fanfic Maverick talk about it instead of me.

After an extremely awkward breakup, an adult Kagome returns to the Sengoku era, that magical land of friendship, adventure, and distressingly crude medicine. There she reunites with Inuyasha, who is hounded by his tragic past but still doggedly making a living splitting bark. Will he follow her back through the well to retrieve 'er, or can you not teach an old dog new tricks?   Link to the story: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1009692/1/Rebound

New York Times photojournalist Peter Parker takes introduces us to a wide variety of mutants, the only marginalized social group to all look like attractive movie stars. Jean-Paul's favorite book is Atlas Shrugged. Peter kind of creeps out toward Monet. Even the photojournalist doesn't want to talk to Scott.   Link to the story: http://www.madweasel.com/kattsaerie/MutantProblem/NYT_mutantproblem_index.html

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 series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTagxffHmpfT765IfQj68dMmfFs3W7s1f

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: https://doumekiwatanuki.livejournal.com/447846.html  

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/TheSeries/BookList.html

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? Does it matter if I was raised on a fanfiction commune? One thing's for sure: our answers will be comprehensive and authoritative, and we will not hedge in the slightest. We promise.

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.   So You Think You Can Fanon: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-you-think-you-can-fanon/id1505089805 Link to the story: http://www.kaijuphile.com/fannest/fiction/godzillavscthulhu_1.shtml  

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://archiveofourown.org/works/68398

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 the fic! We all learn to appreciate Amado more and maybe, also, ourselves.

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 pretty good, actually.   Link to the Fanfic Maverick podcast: https://www.fanficmaverickpodcast.com/ Link to the story: https://www.squidge.org/~theforest/lrecent/unsung.htm AO3 link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797282  

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 on Disney+, and probably on a VHS shoved into the back corner of your garage.

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 roleplaying.   Link to the film: http://deadgentlemen.com/projects/the-gamers-series/the-gamers/

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.fanfiction.net/s/2804025/1/Godzilla-Vs-Jagereth

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: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7091848/1/Only-one-can-wear-the-Crown https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3096336/1/Hope-Is-the-Thing-With-Leather

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 dichotomy on the others to limited success.   Links to the AMVs: Jinnai and the Bugrom Live (El-Hazard): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypGWEXFpxyA Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Utena): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYPGqyF4GJY Elevation (FFIX): https://youtu.be/Hdum57uAOLQ 500 Miles (Ranma): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeuzElAIDA Move Bitch (Various): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yilAb5phPc In the End (Rurouni Kenshin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd73iNKUCds Caffeine Enconium (Kodomo no Omocha): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc8dFL9Mk0o  

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-Destination

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 Godzilla, Darth Vader, and a Xenomorph.   Daicon III and IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THZqXJotlBY Remastered Daicon III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQjruwkyOaU   Remastered Daicon IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDN68LxWW-8&t=314s Densha Otoko Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jg7tpJO6P4    

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 betrayal? Oh, definitely.   Link to the story: http://fanfic.theforce.net/fanfic.asp?action=view&ID=368

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 Spirits site: https://www.arcadespirits.com

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://archiveofourown.org/works/188089 Link to Sara's AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyshark2005

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 story: mtcffultra.com

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 Buffy that he was still alive?   Link to the story: http://spikeluver.com/SpuffyRealm/viewstory.php?sid=24538 Canon Divergent on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/canon-divergent-a-fanfic-podcast/id1615306973

Post-series Buffy needs a vacation, and what better way to relax than to spend some quality time with your erstwhile enemy who totally stole your body at one point? Well, beggars can't be choosers.   Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35958