Episode 431 - Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 11-13

Episode 431: Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 11-13

Your onomatopoeia is undercutting your drama

Life’s not easy for Kenji. There’s a girl he likes, he has problems with bullies at school and an abusive gym teacher, his parents are clearly in trouble and trying to hide it from him and there is a mysterious group who are trying to take over his peaceful home town. You might then ask, what does any of this have to do with the rest of the fic? That’s a very good question, actually, one to which it never provides anything that even remotely resembles an answer. But yet we have a huge block of it in the middle of the fic anyway for no real reason whatsoever. So guzzle some prune juice for the next chunk of Zoids Battle Saga. Now with less context!

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 430 - Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 7-10

Episode 430: Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 7-10

And so the evil empire attacked and saved us from Stark’s wangst. Thanks, evil Empire.

After eleven years of digging a hole in the desert, Vald has discovered a mysterious underground village populated by a previously civilisation. And while this was the single moment he had dedicated his entire life to, he’s also completely irrelevant to it. Instead it’s all about Stark, with him being presented to the magical exposition fairy who gives him both a generic quest and a McGuffin to help him along the way. In the meantime, Marcus does stuff, Tundra loses the plot and generic bad guys are generically evil, but to be honest, do you actually care about any of them? So steal some donuts for the second chunk of Zoids Battle Saga. Now with even more references to toy lines you’ve never heard of!

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 429 - Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 1-6

Episode 429: Zoids Battle Saga, chapters 1-6

That’s what we’ve been missing from our fic reviews. Long lists of what plastic toy dinosaur everybody has

Catastrophes have rendered Earth uninhabitable, and mankind’s only hope is a deep-space colonisation ship hurtling towards an unknown planet. But the sudden death of the captain has thrown the crew into chaos, putting the mission and the fate of humanity at risk. What will happen? Well it doesn’t matter as none of this has anything to do with the fic at all, but it’s all front-loaded in the infodump anyway. What it’s actually about is Stark the Generic Protagonist and his quest to fulfil a mystic destiny, which coincidentally, was also in the opening infodump. So grab yourself an old-timey prospector and look out for Shali-Halud (he whose passage makes the world) for the first part of Zoids Battle Saga. We’ll be here a while

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 428 - Tale of the Nighthawk, chapters 4-7

Episode 428: Tale of the Nighthawk, chapters 4-7

And so they did their ties long into to the night. And as the Earth span slowly and the stars grew cold, still there they were, trying to get her tie right.

Get your wildly inappropriate school bell ready because it’s time for more fast-paced action in Tale of the Nighthawk. And what a tale we have for you! Thrill as a schoolgirl gets stared at! Gasp in shock as she learns to do up her tie! And who could be seated during the awesome tickle fight? Yes, all this and texting! We’ve got absolutely none of the excitement that you expect from a The Batman fic, but we’re going to follow this cast around until we can figure out why! And in and shocking twist that you’ll never see coming, Batman almost appears in a The Batman fanfic! It’s the Tale of the Nighthawk, but we don’t know why!

Riffers: Dan, Maya Gold, Celena Harte and Tsuneo Tateo
Written by: Zogster

Episode 427 - Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 5-9

Episode 427: Storm Force: Operation Mole Machine, parts 5-9

To reiterate the point, a man on a hang-glider is shooting spiders at people. Yes, this is entirely serious

As Magnus remains in a state of total brain malfunction due to a spider bite and female operative Stiletto is once again effortlessly kidnapped, heroic combat leader John Storm (and maybe those other three guys) race against time to stop half-man, half-spider terrorist leader from drilling into their secret underground lair. And yes, this entirely serious, why do you ask? But first they must overcome the dreaded jet-powered remote-controlled spider bomb and face the might of Pinky-Puff, the terror of Harrow Lane. Will they succeed? Probably. Will the status quo be reset as if nothing happened? Of course. It’s Storm Force, so what did you expect? So get your tea and biscuits and pick your best weapon arm for Operation Mole Machine. Also featuring a non-machine mole!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Rick R.

Rebuild of Elmer Studios, year nine

Year nine of the Rebuild of Elmer Studios was one of those strange moments where things took completely unexpected turn. We’ve now completely overtaken the original iteration by a considerable degree, even allowing for spin-offs, side projects, collaborations, lost episodes and the like. And that’s only going to increase.

In the last year we finished twenty-three episodes, an increase over past years. There may have been mitigating circumstances that did prompt that increase in productivity; something to do with us and the rest of the world being stuck indoors with nothing better to do with their times. It’s not quite the fabled two episodes per month I’d wanted, but it’s about as close as it’s ever going to get.

Episode 426 - Washed Up City

Episode 426: Washed Up City

When your hostage is more worried about watering her potplants than you, you’ve probably done something wrong.

After his father is exploded in a nuclear reactor accident, young Darren Dylan Hendrix gains water powers because it’s a superhero story and that’s how things work. Armed with these new abilities he decides to pursue and creep on one girl, even though she is a plant-based ecoterrorist and wanted by the law, but that doesn’t seem to bother him any. Armed with his new powers, an elaborately over-designed hazmat suit and a giggle-worthy nickname, Waterspout might even find time from annoying his fake girlfriend to find who was behind his father’s death. But don’t bet on it. Throw in the obligatory Arkham breakout and a few spare origin stories and you have the chunk of fiction that is Washed Up City.

PS: Batgirl fic coming soon

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Zogster and Rick R.