Times of peace are few, far between, and all too short for our world-hopping heroes. After indulging in some well-earned downtime, the League summons Team Ohana for a new mission... and it quickly becomes clear that this new world is going to be much more dangerous than anything they've encountered before.
Stitch helps Lace cultivate a new skill set; Luna seeks redemption; Nico creates a sweet new ride; Dante grotesquely misuses a dessert topping; and Mordin realizes just how much he's missed the chaos.
When an evil crime lord grows powerful enough to make multiple sovereign nations break into a cold sweat, there's really only one thing to do: call in a pair of hilarious but effective buddy cop comedy duos who cook some fools and don't play by the rules!
Chief Inspector Lee of the Hong Kong police department is on the case, and still hasn't managed to shake off his partner, Detective James Carter of the LAPD. Rush hour has arrived once again, and Carter and Lee are ready to stop the traffic...of crime! However they soon find out that for this mission, they have some British competition -- and there's nothing they can do about it, the paperwork has all been signed. Sanford's own Nicholas Angel and Danny Butterman are also here in the name of promoting the greater good (the greater good) and quickly decide to show their international rivals why farmers and farmer's mums alike have learned to fear the fuzz! Will Carter and Lee demonstrate that war, huh, is sometimes good for winning Smash Fiction matches? Or will Angel and Butterman politely explain why you never touch an Englishman's police investigation?
Tune in for fun and explosions as our advocates get heated in opening arguments, feel the rush in rebuttals, and improbably acquire the power of time travel in the Lightning Round! Also, if you've ever been curious to see just how angry Miles can get about a piece of media he doesn't like, you'll want to check this one out.
It's ladies' night down in the lab this week on Smash Metafiction as Claire, Kit, Liz, and Meganbob put their heads together to create a story of mystery, superpowers, and romance unlike any other!
An aristocrat, a warrior, a rockstar, and a spirit of mischief come together unexpectedly in a tale of intrigue. Join us for a film that dares to tackle the real questions, like: Just how jacked can a mutated squirrel get? What's the best way to come out to your friends, family, and YouTube followers about your slime-based powers? And which Pokémon's poop makes the best chocolate?
Magical puns and jokes about lighter fluid abound in this week's particularly charming episode of Smash Fiction, as Marvel and DC's respective California fashion-goth word witches do battle in a contest to see who can wave their wand, staff, or weird magic murder arm and make their opponent... disappear!
Nico Minoru, the somewhat morally ambiguous member of the Runaways, A-Force, and most importantly, the Extraordinary League, has stolen the Book of Shadows to try and learn more about her own powers. But stage magician, actual magician, and off-and-on Justice League member Zatanna Zatara is wise to Nico's game and determined to take her down. Will Zatanna prevail with a muttered "niw siht hctam," or will Nico cry, "BULLSHIT!" and use the Staff of One to transform herself into a winner?
Sharon Schneiderman returns with a vengeance (and a few cosplay ideas); Miles leans hard into Nico definitely not being evil, what are you talking about; MeganBob brings back her lawyer voice; Claire tries to speak backwards with varying results; and Liz Logan takes the Lightning Round to a dark, dark place.
The Mushroom Kingdom arc comes to a dramatic conclusion as the heroes finally confront the villain responsible for all the destruction and chaos they've faced since stepping foot into this world. But robots and power armor are far from the only threats that the League will have to contend with in their final struggle here, and one of them will have to decide how far they're willing to go to make sure they win.
Stitch waxes poetic; Vivian reaches out to an old friend; Nico puts her studies to good use; Dante returns to some of his old tricks; and Luna has to face the consequences of her decision.
Additional music used this episode is "Killers" and "Baba Yaga" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Well, once again, the Anniversary special is being released a day late, so it's pretty clear that the Smash Fiction Podcast is STILL not getting any better (if anything, based on the matches that have made up the majority of our third year, it's just getting...weird). And yet, here you all are, continuing to listen to this dumb show of ours. We can't thank you enough for that. Really.
As a token of our appreciation, please enjoy an hour of Miles, Claire, Kit, Liz, MeganBob, and Dan answering listener questions that touch on such topics as Godzilla wearing a tiny hat, sparrows afflicted with ennui, and whether or not Stitch is marriage material. As always, we couldn't have gotten to wherever it is we are without all of you, so thank you once again, from the very bottom of our cockles.
And thanks as always to Kevin McCleod of incompetech.com for a number of songs featured on this episode, including Fun in a Bottle, Mischief Maker, Club Diver, Call to Adventure, and Rains Will Fall.
This episode originally aired as the Patreon bonus episode for July 2018. The original description follows:
So I'd been wanting to do something a bit different with this month's bonus League episode and eventually settled on doing a plot a la the movie The Hangover, in which a group of people wake up, discover that they've lost all memory of the night before, and have to retrace their steps in order to figure out what happened.
And then I got the results of the $5 Patreon poll and saw the characters that you wanted the hosts to play. Skeletor? Janet from The Good Place? Freaking Optimus Prime?! How was I supposed to do a memory loss plot with characters like that?
This was probably the single most difficult session of League I've ever had to write, but in the end I found it very fulfilling and tons of fun to do. I hope that you all do too. Thanks for your support!
-Dan
Additional music this episode is "Noise Attack" and "Exhilarate" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
When the Polynesian trickster god Maui steals the golden apples of the Hesperides and the mighty Olympian demigod known as Hercules is sent to get them back, there's only one way to figure out who would win in a fight. And when you're doing a Smash Fiction match between Disney characters, there's only one guest host to call in: Kris Newton of Gameable and MegaDumbCast! Unfortunately, Kris' attempts at thinking are immediately lost in a sea of yelling, as arguments over animated films about the power of love and friendship become possibly more heated than they ever have before!
Also, Claire dives deep into the realm of cartoon physics (which is to be expected), MeganBob joins in on the raised voices and name-calling (which is most assuredly not to be expected) and Dan unwitting unleashes horrors the human mind was not meant to consider in the Lightning Round!
Ship Wrecked is back for a second date, and if you thought dinner was fun, wait till you hear about romantic thrift store shopping! The latest edition of Smash Metafiction's spectacular speed dating game features different characters, new locations, and of course, more wrinkles, as we attempt to find a fictional couple deserving of the title of OTP! Is there a chance these ships are seaworthy, or is the love between, say, 1000-year-old supernatural monsters and shape-changing teenage alien warriors forever destined to fail?
Also, Claire continues her relentlessly punny ways, Kit brings a knife to a smooch fight, two contestants decide to get it on immediately, and Liz Logan completely reinvents an iconic comic book character by virtue of knowing almost nothing about them.
It’s rare to get a do-over when your world is destroyed, but the alternate-dimension bending and timeline restoration powers of the Chrono Cross promise just that. Serge is ready to pass on his timeline white-out device and three Final Fantasy heroines with post-apocalyptic homes will do whatever it takes to get their hands on it. Terra Branford of Final Fantasy VI, Tifa Lockhart of Final Fantasy VII, and Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII fight it out in the Temporal Vortex using all the magic and combat skills in their respective arsenals.
Claire schools everyone on the power of Espers; Dan fondly recalls the time Tifa made pseudo-Sephiroth cry; MeganBob bashes fictional horses, and Judge Miles takes the advocates on a field trip to bizarre and familiar place in the Lightning round.
There was an idea (Smash Fiction listeners know this) called the Surprise Party Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkably nerdy idiots who could take the casts of popular stories and replace them with fictional characters from other stories, then compete with each other to see whose party would be the best one at completing the original story. It's a pretty stupid notion, but what the hell, we've done it twice before, might as well do it again!
As you may have guessed, this time around, the SmashFic hosts are making their own teams of Avengers to fight off Loki and the invading Chitauri! With Dan as both their guide and their judge, they draft a set of heroes, compete in challenges from the film, and try to score the most points on the path that leads, inevitably, toward schwarma.
Kit and Claire maintain their personal brands by picking exactly the characters you'd expect them to pick, Liz Logan uses her Surprise Party debut to provide one of the most heartbreaking moments in the history of storytelling, and Dan ends the contest with a final, massive twist that drives everybody in the world insane. Probably.
This episode originally aired as the Patreon bonus episode for June 2018. The original description follows:
Miles' June bonus content is a little late, but better late than never! Unless you happen to be Claire Mulkerin, of course. In that case, you would have chosen the "never" option in a heartbeat if it meant never, ever having to re-watch Zack Snyder's much-maligned 2011 film, Sucker Punch. Unfortunately for Claire, Miles really likes Sucker Punch, and now they have to TALK ABOUT IT.
What is Sucker Punch, anyway? What does it mean? Why can't Claire see past the violence, the implied violence, the lack of characterization, the inconsistent acting, the dubiously-constructed dialogue, and the shoddy action sequences to whatever the hell it is that Miles sees beneath, and finds fascinating? Fortunately, you support our work with your hard-earned money, so you get to find out!
How's that for a sucker punch?
-Miles
The real villain behind the chaos in the Mushroom Kingdom has been revealed and the League have their sights set on his fortress. With no other path before them, the heroes are forced to gather allies, resources... and some sweet wheels.
Nico tries to start a book club; Stitch does hard time; Vivian should maybe consider wearing a bell; Luna makes some ill-advised promises; and Dante says goodbye.
When Chip Hazard and the Commando Elite activate their AI circuits and enter the magical nightmare world of Toy Story, it quickly becomes clear that Andy's house isn't big enough for both sets of dolls action figures. With the family away on vacation, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of Andy's toys are forced to defend themselves against the assault of the besieging Small Soldiers. Will their strategy, physical prowess, and tendency toward accepting the inevitability of death and despair lead them to victory? Or will Chip, Brick, and the rest of the Elite do to their opponents what they once completely failed to do to the Gorgonites?
Sam Gasch of the Ideal Remake podcast enters the Smash Fiction arena for the first time, MeganBob insists that toys can run at supersonic speed, Claire comes up with a cohesive theory for the integration of these two movies into the same fictional universe, and as always, Toy Story breaks everybody's brain until they don't really want to live anymore. Enjoy!
Join us in the lab this week as, once again, Claire guides three Smash Fiction hosts through the collaborative storytelling game called Collaboratory!
This time around, we put together a most unusual heist crew consisting of characters from comics, video games, and Shakespeare, and send them into a dungeon in search of treasure and glory. Can our heroes survive monsters, death traps, and sudden but inevitable betrayal? Will any of our characters find love in this hopeless place? And just how many Sean Beans are too many Sean Beans?
Amidst the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the multiversal Astro-Kerfuffle, two unthinkably powerful entities become aware of each other... and recognize each other as threats. The genetically-engineered psychic Pokémon powerhouse called Mewtwo makes his way to Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, and neither is going to leave until the other lies broken and defeated.
Can Vader pull out a win despite the fact that he can neither fly nor control the weather? Can Mewtwo survive Vader's lightsaber prowess? Will Dan and guest advocate Neal Butler be able to coordinate their themed outfits? Can Claire's knowledge of filing cabinets help to drive her point home? Will Kit be able to focus on the match without thinking about how overwhelmingly adorable Mew is?
And if you're disappointed that this episode only includes two supervillains, just wait for judge Meganbob to drop the Lightning Round...
The League has fought their way through armies of Koopas and robots, but they've finally reached Mushroom Castle. Their fight isn't done yet, though, as the King of the Koopas himself quickly makes his presence known... and he's very unhappy with our heroes. Can the League survive this encounter as their fight with Bowser quickly escalates to earth-shaking levels?
Dante decides to expand his culinary tastes; Stitch goes full John Wick; Vivian gets her flirt on; Nico creates a monster; and Luna really believes that Bowser's coming around, you guys.
Special thanks to ToxicXEternity for the boss music in this episode! Check out his work at youtube.com/toxicxeternity.
Hile, listeners! Look closely, I beg. See a pair of legendary gunfighters, each among the most formidable to ever draw iron. In another life, perhaps, these two may have met under more amiable circumstances. Perhaps they have even become friends. But the world has moved on, and ka has decreed that their paths must cross in conflict. For one of these men is Roland Deschain of Gilead-that-was, the last gunslinger, he who seeks the Dark Tower and the room that sits at the top. The other is Vash the Stampede, of Trigun, a living whirlwind of strife and death whose skill with the gun is surpassed only by the amount of money that can be acquired for his head, and he stands in Roland's path. Ka is a demon bitch that way, may it do ya, and one of these men will not be leaving the battleground alive.
See these Smash Fiction competitors, listeners. See them very well. And know that the irony of asking you to see things is not lost on us!
See also their advocates, among them, returning guest hosts Matias Tautimez and Rafael Medina! Listen all the way to the end of the episode, despite Claire turning the opening scenario into a jumble o phonetic confusion and Miles producing perhaps the worst opening stinger in podcast history! Not all of them many survive this episode, but in the thanks section, we shall cry all their names!
Smash Metafiction proudly debuts its newest game: the speed dating reality show called Ship Wrecked! Claire brings in a boatload of puns as host, while Dan, Kit, Liz, and Meganbob take on the roles of different popular fictional characters. They'll take turns pairing off and getting to know each other in various romantic situations, with an unexpected element introducing delicious chaos partway through each date. At the end, the characters will choose who they most want to continue dating, in the hopes that the other person will feel the same way. Will any pairs prove compatible, or will our contestants be set adrift in the great ocean we call rejection? And just how will characters from God of War, Mass Effect, Labyrinth, and Marvel Comics fare in the stormy seas of romance?
God only knows why Ned Flanders has the most sought-after soul this side of Springfield, but Hell aims to find out why. Not one but two Crowleys, both demonic masters of temptation, have been sent to make Flanders a deal, but a man can only really sell his soul once. Will Supernatural's Crowley meet Ned at a crossroads and make him a deal no double-widower could refuse? Or will Good Omen's Crowley masterfully orchestrate all of Springfield's worst citizens into the perfect corrupting force against poor pious Ned?
Miles reminds us of the Beginning; MeganBob gets real about Sam and Dean Winchester; Dan threatens torture; and Brad Bultman returns to tell you to give up on your dreams of being on Ninja Warrior.
The League finally meets up with Princess Peach and her band of rebels. With an army of Yoshis at their backs, they'll surely make quick work of Bowser and his Koopa Troop! I mean, it's not like Bowser has giant robots, moats filled with lava, or hundreds of other nasty surprises waiting for them, right?
Vivian gets catty; Stitch gets into plants (literally); Dante makes pamphlets; Luna gets twice as sweet; and Nico's fixation on pro wrestling continues to grow.
Additional music is "Deuces" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
This episode originally aired as the Patreon bonus episode for April 2018. The original description follows:
It's that time again. Instead of Smash Fiction's usual brand of yelling and making lowbrow dick jokes, Itchy Brains is a time for having deep philosophical conversations about art and making highbrow dick jokes. This time I'm joined by MeganBob and Kit, and we're experimenting with the format a bit: whereas last time we centered our discussion around a single topic, this time we're centering it on a single work of art, "The Shape of Water."
How does "Shape of Water" manage to be erotic without perpetuating the immoral qualities of pornography at its worst? How can you make an accurate period piece without endorsing the pervasive problematic attitudes of that time? What is "coding" and how has fiction used it to associate villains and monsters with certain real world marginalized groups? Would it have been more or less hot if we had seen that fish dick? Damn, didn't even make it to the end of the description this time... I think I have a problem.
-Claire
The music used in the episode is "Blip Stream" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
In the year 20[redacted], the world has fallen into a super-cool but depressingly corporate cyberpunk dystopia, black leather and robot parts are always in fashion, and information is the #1 currency. Which could explain why Hiro Protagonist, the last freelance hacker and greatest swordsman in the world, finds himself in a race against both time and a very worthy opponent -- Overwatch's morally ambiguous hacking specialist, Sombra. Or it could maybe have something to do with the trickster machinations of a certain Smash Fiction Patron, but -- no. No, that's just crazy talk.
After the same info, Hiro and Sombra must infiltrate the corporate megaplex in which it is housed, overcoming guards, security systems, and of course, each other. Will Hiro use his samurai swords and Sumerian language mysteries to show everyone why his name is still at the top of the leaderboard? Or will Sombra, with a muttered "cochino," give him a taste of her own personal brand of Snow Crash?
In an episode churning with references to Second Life, old D&D memes, and of course, Extraordinary League, your hosts toss insults around, ship Overwatch characters, and remember that Snow Crash was, in fact, written in 1992. And in a very special milestone, the podcast receives it's first live Kit You're Welcome!
When Mari McCabe, a.k.a. Vixen, learns of her ancestors' long-lost artifacts, extremely reliable Internet sources lead her to Wakanda. However, the king of Wakanda, Black Panther, holds the safety of his citizens at a paramount, and is there to greet Vixen when she arrives. Though she has claim to the apparently divine artifacts, he has the right to protect them from dishonorable hands. However could they possibly solve this dispute? As it turns out, with mystical claws!
Miles wants you to be aware of Black Panther's cinematic success. Hub, from Titan Up the Defense, joins Dan to argue for all the animal powers you might've learned in Zoobooks as well as the comic animal powers you might not have considered. And MeganBob just wants everyone to be friends (though that might be too much to ask).
Surprise Party is back, and just in time, because it's a period of civil war and somebody needs to blow up that damn Death Star! Of course, it won't be Princess Leia and her friends on any mercy mission this time -- several fictional characters were beamed to this podcast by Smash Fiction hosts. Claire, Kit, and MeganBob have constructed three parties of new New Hopes, and with Dan as their high-minded Force ghost guide, they will compete in a series of scored contests to see who will be the first to shit-talk Grand Moff Tarkin, move along a group of Stormtroopers, and become more powerful than Darth Vader can possibly imagine!
Featuring Claire's never-ending well of Looney Tunes references, Kit and Bob being entirely on the same page during character selection, and the game-wrecking potential of the ignominious Dumpus! As always, Smash Metafiction has a light side and a dark side and binds the universe together, so fire up your astromech droids and let's do a Star War!