Some difficulties during recording mean that this episode is a bit shorter than normal, but you still get a giant helping of Mushroom Kingdom action and intrigue! The League (and their new companion) have been found by Koopa Troops--it looks like their quest to free the land from Bowser won't be an easy one. Can the League stand up to some of their weirdest enemies yet? And what ill-advised and hideously impractical plan will they come up with to infiltrate an entire stronghold of these things?

Dante goes old school; Luna makes sure everyone gets enough to eat; Stitch tries on some new kicks; Nico goes her own way; and Vivian REALLY plays against type.

We've got winter sports fever here at Smash Fiction, so we've put together the ultimate showcase of figure skating athleticism for your listening pleasure! Japan's Yuri Katsuki joins with his rival, Russia's Yuri Plisetsky, as the team known as Yuri(s) on Ice--and they had better be prepared to make history, because their opponents are the legendary Americans Chazz Michael Michaels and Jimmy MacElroy, better known as the Blades of Glory!

Men will spin. Ice will be sliced. Same-sex coupling will be strongly implied. Will judge Dan be won over by Kit and Meganbob's contention that the Yuris' passion, love of pork, and actual visible skating skill will win the day? Or will Claire and special guest advocate Brad Bultman come flying down from the sky and successfully argue that skating prowess and blatant absurdity are not mutually exclusive?

It's another episode of Smash Metafiction, featuring the debut of a new experimental game -- Surprise Party! Drawing from fictional characters across the multiverse, the Smash Fiction hosts build their own adventuring parties of fighters, rogues, mages, clerics, and bards (not to mention the dreaded "dumpus") and see whose team can best complete the trials and tribulations of a previously existing story. In the inaugural episode, Dan guides three cobbled-together character coalitions through the plot of The Lord of the Rings, scoring them from best to worst in a series of contests that will, ultimately, determine which party successfully casts the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doooooooooooom!

Will Sauron be defeated (by Claire's commitment to Jedi pacifism)? Will Middle-Earth be saved (thanks to a bunch of weirdos that only Miles has ever heard of)? Will Kit show up with any characters that are human and/or have the ability to speak? There's only one way to find out: Listen, you fools!

Well, listeners, it's finally happened. It was inevitable, really. It was clear right from the beginning that one day, these events would occur. Most of us never believed in the prophecy, but here we are. Smash Fiction has finally, officially caught the slashfic bug (MeganBob is actually the disease's primary carrier, so yeah, should have seen that one coming). Not only that, but we've infected the Gameable Podcast with it, as well. Kris and Katrina had no choice but to return to our show once again, this time for a series of arguments that would be purely speculative if they weren't so completely obvious.

Smash Fiction's pledge has always been to answer the big questions, and this week, we tackle one of the biggest there's ever been. If, in one room, you were to put James Tiberius Kirk captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and his first officer, Commander Spock, and in another room, you put Frodo Baggins and his faithful friend and gardener, Samwise Gamgee...which hypothetical dream couple would be the first to throw out their inhibitions and get busy? Will Kris use the sheer depth of his Lord of the Rings philosophy to defeat Dan's insistence on things like facts and evidence? Will Katrina realize her secret destiny as a wedding planner? Will MeganBob somehow be able to prevent herself from shipping other characters during this process? And how can Claire possibly make a decision between the two? At long last, the definitive answers to all these questions lie within your grasp...if, that is, your mind can survive the experience.

Now that the siege on Castle Grayskull has been broken, the League is finally able to catch their breath and begin to rebuild. Old injuries are addressed, new status quos are examined, and threats are flung in every direction. And finally, the League finds a new lead in their struggle against Phyrexia, which leads them to a new world... a very, very strange new world.

Stitch plays keep-away; Nico redefines anti-social behavior; Luna hands out swag; Dante looks into some upgrades; and Mordin has an important decision to make.

This episode originally aired as the Patreon bonus episode for January 2018. The original description follows:

Thanks to your continued support, I am... proud?... to bring you the latest bonus episode of Extraordinary League!

It all started with a simple question I posed to myself: what would happen if a bunch of League characters got on a train? The answer ended up involving a lot more improvisation, sky pirates, and ghosts than you might initially think. I'm so grateful to all of you for making this possible--I hope you have as much fun listening to to it as we had making it.

-Dan

What happens when the Opera Populaire's legendary Phantom and the man known as Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, start killing people simultaneously in a Paris that is now under the steely-eyed watch of the miserable but constantly rules-enforcing Inspector Javert? Why, the most musical episode of Smash Fiction in history, of course! As Todd and the Phantom attempt to avoid the investigative attentions of the good inspector (well, the lawful neutral inspector, at least), all the SmashFic hosts break into song, at least one of them raps, the long-lost Musical Round returns, and Rafael Medina is here, so some of it actually sounds good!

Will the Phantom leave one last chronology-muddling rose on his enemy's grave, or will Sweeney Todd have a brand new flavor of pie to sell in Mrs. Lovett's shop? And how much singing is there in this episode, really? (Hint: So much. There's so much singing.)

In the inaugural episode of Smash Metafiction, Claire guides the Smash Fic hosts through a collaborative storytelling exercise that we like to call... Collaboratory. For reasons that are evident over the course of the show. Actually, you get to hear the conversation in which we decide on that name. It's fun times.

Each of the hosts shows up with an existing fictional character or archetype, as well as a story element, including genre, setting, goal, and MacGuffin. Then, using screenwriting steps and structure from the book Save The Cat, they combine these disparate parts into a new, greater, and only slightly disfigured whole! This time around, sitcom characters terrorize the high seas, there's definitely room in the cast for Lady Gaga, and you'll never guess who Kit brings to the table...

Son of a...really, magic? Really? All we were trying to do was cast a simple spell to create a podcast episode where two bumbling, no-talent magicians square off in a contest of raw incompetence. But damn, we must have gotten something wrong, because this episode is way too competitive and full of sex jokes, not at all the light-hearted romp we were going for. Oh well. Maybe no one will notice...

Anyway, after years of enjoying a total dearth of animated brooms dancing around and flooding his workspace, celebrated Disney sorcerer Yen Sid is finally ready to take on another apprentice. The only problem is, he has two apprentices. The Orko kid seems to have all kinds of raw magic ability, but also a disturbing lack of skill, focus, or a voice that doesn't grate down Yen Sid's spine. And Rincewind...well, he claims to be a "wizzard" already, and he's quick on his feet, but he's also the unluckiest, most thoroughly non-magical individual Yen Sid has ever encountered. The sorcerer is a patient man, but a busy one, as well; he only has time to take on one of these two projects. Will it be the Trollan jester from Castle Eternia, or the Discworld's most notorious nobody? And more importantly, what insights about gay iconography and 1980s progressivism did MeganBob glean from her first viewing of the He-Man animated series?

The final showdown between the League and Demona has arrived, with the Power of Grayskull hanging in the balance! Can Helena's newfound might help the heroes to stand against Demona and her army of weirdly-themed villains? Who will become the new Sorceress of Grayskull? And what ever happened to those other five characters that were standing guard at Castle Grayskull, anyway?

Stitch takes on an army; Mordin puts his newest invention to the test; Dante loses something important; Nico has an unexpected reunion; and Helena fights for honor.

Also used in this episode is "Killers" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/