In this last year we completed twenty-one episodes (well, actually twenty, but Episode 404 is in final edit as I type this. As can be seen from previous years, this sort of pace has become the new normal for us; my goal of two episodes per month has sadly proven to be unrealistic for what is, in essence, a casual hobby project. However, we still did have a number of good episodes in that last year.
It also needs to be said that this last year was the victim of two massive reschedules that also threw off our planning. One of those was a fic that had already not only been entered into the schedule, but also begun work on the riffing; as such, removing it from the schedule changed a lot of other things around. One of the reshuffled fics is still to come; when you read it, you’ll begin to understand why it was moved.
The last The Death Games
Probably the biggest fictive moment for us was finally (!) reaching the end of The Death Games after what seemed to be only six dozen chapters. While we had very early on seen the fic for what it was (ie, a reskin of The Hunger Games with the Young Justice cast and, of course, a gratuitous author OC) even then we were genuinely surprised by the ending of the fic… largely because of how bad and how convoluted it was.
All in all, The Death Games clearly had an idea (as described above) and a goal (Nightwing and the author’s totally awesome new character make out) but it had no idea whatsoever on how it was going to get there. The result was taking a straightforward, uh, adaptation and throwing in a whole pile of needless and, frankly stupid plot twists that made no sense at all. Why? Maybe it was to ensure that no matter what, our heroes would be able to walk away guilt free for never having actually hurt anyone. Or maybe the fic just didn’t have a clue what it was doing.
Of course, any discussion of The Death Games has to include its substantial cast herd. The vast majority of them never amounted to anything and didn’t have any lives at all, but the author was determined to shove them in no less. But even then, we couldn’t help but get attached to Intelligent on Plants Girl (No, I can’t remember her name, and no, I won’t bother checking) for her amazing introduction.
And, of course, the fic did give us the legend of Eggs Over Easy Boy. It needs to be said that he came into being during the first read-through of the fic while looking at the character introductions. After that, his place in the fic was sealed.
This is the fic that never ends
Our biggest fic this year was Shadow of a Phoenix, a fic that took seven years to write. And, frankly, it felt like it took that long to riff as well. In many ways, it was a part of the slow pace of the year’s riffing; the fic was a gigantic pace-stumper that was just a slog to get through in places. It featured chapter after chapter of nothing happening at all, and yet also managed to be incredibly wordy at the same time.
This was a fic that was impressive, even if for all the wrong reasons. It was amazing just how little ground it actually covered in all of that time, but yet how much effort it put into doing nothing. It also quickly became one of those fics which came apart under even the barest of analysis, as its central plot was hinged on people making completely nonsensical decisions, and then following through with them to their logical extreme. And then the fic chose to double-down on those choices and make them even worse as it went on.
Oddly enough, however, for a fic that was so long, it also wasn’t that memorable. I struggle to remember anything from it beyond the broadest details of the plot. However, it also managed to be a big enough obstacle to completely throw off our schedule.
Shifting into Rebuild Gear
Okay, that was terrible. Sorry.
The decision to rebuild Bubblegum Shift was one that I had been toying with for some time. It was always one of my favourite fics, and in a strange way, I felt that we’d never done it justice in the original incarnation. We drew it out into non-consecutive episodes and kept dicking around with the cast which killed any real consistency in the original run. Doing a rebuild of it was a chance to get it right and have a better go of it.
However, that did present one unexpected problem. We were only able to locate three of the four chapters that we originally riffed in their raw format. One of them, chapter three, needed to be reconstructed from our riffed version. As such, it’s possible that there may be some errors or formatting issues that slipped through. None the less, it’s about as complete as a copy that was available to us, and it’s not like we had anything else.
However, my attempts to (re-)collect the fic did turn up another surprise, one that should be appearing very soon.
Some Not Very Smart People (and smoothies)
Stupid people were a big feature of the year. Fallout South Carolina gave us the almighty John and his supporting cast herd who not only had very little definition as individuals, but would sometimes even change their names from one sentence to another. John was one of those odious OCs that was always right, no matter what, even when is actions (or lack thereof) lead to other people’s deaths. And then on top of that we had the stupidest plot device we’ve ever seen (and likely ever will see) in the Mind Control Smoothie. No, I did not make that up.
In a similar vein, we had Old Knights, another entirely OC based fanfic. This one was about a swarm of staggeringly stupid people who constantly made staggeringly stupid decisions to the point that you had to wonder how they were still alive at all. On top of that, the fic featured an aggressively stupid story that only worked at all because, what do you know, people kept making stupid decisions to move it along.
And now for some Dubious Awards
The “best” fic of the year probably would have to be Old Knights simply for its sheer stupidity on every level. I also admit that it gets points for novelty as well for being a Battletech fanfic that isn’t a massive, self-indulgent, inaccessible cinderblock.
The character of the year is a hard call, simply because there weren’t as many that we latched onto like we have in previous years. The best contenter would have to be Igni from Old Knights for his commitment to sheer inaction and inability to make any sort of decision at all. Save for the one time that he’s confronted with a crisis, that is, in which he instead chooses to sit on it and not tell anyone.
(And because awarding this to Eggs Over Easy Boy would have been cheating)
Conversely, the most annoying character of the year would have to Shigeru Freaking Kodo from Fragments of Zero for being a self-important, arrogant, condescending jerkarse at every opportunity while never once showing a single hint of likability, humility or anything else. However, because he was the author’s pet OC, everyone else constantly talked him up at being the best in the universe at everything, instead of punching him in the face which would be the natural reaction.
The Wangst of the Year goes to Midnight’s Shadow from Shadow of a Phoenix, who managed to make buying food from a vending machine into a massive drama fest.
Finally, the McGuffin of the year, and for all time, is the Mind Control Smoothie from Fallout South Carolina. I don’t think we’ll ever top that.
The future is now
As mentioned ip top, Episode #404 is in final edit as I type this. Episode #405 has also begun riffing, with progress moving along quickly. Furthermore, we’ve locked in up to episode #416 (barring even more schedule changes) and have several more fics lined up as potential future content. So you’ve got a lot to look forward to in the year to come.
Meanwhile, have a smoothie.
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