The night before I was set to go visit my good friend and podcasting co-host Matty, I was listening to a rare breed podcast, the ‘FANFICTION’ podcast. You see when I go and visit Matty I plan three things as part of my agenda:
- Give Matty Asylum DVDs.
- Spend a good hour browsing the various market stalls that sell retro video games.
- Torture ourselves reading the terrible fanfic for our fan fiction podcast.
You see roughly two years ago me and Matty swapped podcasts for an episode with Ryland Duncan and Tom Caswell who were the hosts of a show called ‘Rangercast vs. Fanfiction’ created as a sort of spin-off to Rangercast (a podcast that reviews Power Ranger episodes), RCvsFF had Tom and Ryland reading a TERRIBLE fan fiction in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style manner and to be fair to them, a lot of these fanfics deserved it.
They don’t call it ‘bashing’ as such, but more ‘creatively destroying’ as some of these fanfics deserve it, Crimson Dragon to name one of the said terrible writers.
So as I stated we ‘swapped’ shows for one episode. We read three terrible fanfics and they discuss Doctor Who. It had mixed results. Their Doctor Who discussion was good. Our fan fiction reading received mixed reviews. Ryland said he loved it but some people posted on Rangerboard saying they hated it.
Regardless we both carried on with our separate shows and before their untimely end Rangercast vs. Fanfiction had released 6 fanfiction episodes, 1 interview with a respect fan fiction author and said Doctor Who discussion.
Here’s a quick run down of their fan fiction releases;
The first episode of the guys reading and discussing a fanfic titled ‘Power Rangers: Project Battle’ after Skype troubles caused a scheduled Rangercast discussion to end up being scrapped. An edited version was released on Rangercast however Ryland (or maybe Tom did, it’s been a while) posted a unedited version on megaupload. The 2nd half was removed from the Rangercast release due to background typing being distracting. This episode is still available on the Rangercast site,
Episode 2 – Chilli And Mayonnaise
A shorter episode and the less said the better as it’s very borderline NC-17. Hostel in the 2nd half. Sadly, this episode is still available on the Rangercast site.
Episode 3 – Ancient Douchebags
Tom and Ryland read/discuss/rip to shreds a fanfic called ‘Power Rangers: Ancient Elements’ and trust me it’s so bad that me and Matty decided to continue reading this fanfic for our podcast. It’s so bad we thought it deserved to be ripped apart. This episode is still available on Rangercast site:
Episode 4 – Secrets And Betrayal Part 1
A Power Rangers SPD shipping fanfic. Pretty poorly written and was the first fanfic to be suggested to the guys by Snoops Warner, a fan who unlike most of the Rangerboard users, actually has a sense of humor.
Episode 5 – Secrets And Betrayal Part 2
The guys carry on with that terrible fanfic. Nuff said.
Episode 6 – Hero Farced
After some production delays Tom and Ryland are joined by two new co-hosts Evan ‘Elk’ and Tom ‘Y3K’ as they read ‘Power Rangers: Hero Force’ and a strange scene from a HEROES/Power Rangers SPD fanfic they aborted. Sadly, this was the last episode.
One of RC vs. FF from what I’ve been able to gather from discussing with various members of the show was Tom Caswell, the shows co-creator and head editor, was a bit of a perfectionist. This lead to constant re-recording of several fanfics over and over again, that in time led to production falling apart and leaving at least 10 episodes unreleased. Shame as I loved to hear them. The world needs a good laugh.
I give Tom Caswell credit as he tried to modify the readers voices to make them sound different when it came to the villains. Check out episode 3 to see what I mean.
It wasn’t until it was announced that production was finally dead that Matty, Shamus and I ended up starting up our own fan fiction podcast. Since that podcast swap I’ve been itching to do another episode. We recorded one episode, then another, then another and are still going. It was all thanks to Rangercast Vs Fanfiction which is why I’ve taken the time to discuss them as there aren’t many good fan fiction podcasts in this style out there. Most are too serious like those Twilight ones or their all about shipping like that Harry Potter and Hermonie one. Actually, come to think about it I think theirs a Xena one out there, somewhere …
If you’re interested in listening to any of these episode links are included in the article to the ones still online. Thank you for reading.
4/5 – It’s a great show but the fact 10 episodes are unreleased with no sign of them appearing online at all leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’m afraid this is the closet we’ve got a official site anymore folks.
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