Before inter-continuity combat became a recurring cash-grab trend in fighting games, TurtleNinja's imaginatively titled "Mortal Kombat/TMNT Crossover" sought to bridge the gap between innocuous children shows about reptilian martial-artists who love pizza and splatter-gore video games where you have the option of either decapitating your opponent or ripping out his spine. In this episode's fanfic, the Ninja Turtles team up with a grossly out-of-character Shredder (who, as the author repeatedly points out, is secretly a really nice guy underneath all those layers of megalomania) after they are inexplicably transported to Outworld by Shao Khan who hatches a sinister scheme where... uuuuh... y'know, I really don't know. Something about how the Turtles "may be useful as [his] entertainment in the next tournament." Whatever, man. Wake me up when Michelangelo and Scorpion start brawling.
But there's a catch: this fanfic also features a stealth Mary Sue.
The author tosses into her MUGEN-esque mash-up a mawkish subplot where the romantic exploits of an ambiguously gendered Relationship Sue named (wait for it) TurtleNinja take center-stage and pull us away from the perfunctory, blink-or-you'll-miss-'em fight scenes. No great loss, I suppose, since the brawling is mostly of the beige variety. Then again, the mental image of humanoid reptiles gettin' their freak on will probably haunt me until the day I die.
Next Time: "Quorra Punishment Chapters," most likely. Unless you guys think I should finally release that long-abandoned audiobook production of "Artemis's Lover" I recorded ages ago. Confused? Keep listening after the end of this week's episode for more information. Either way, the next episode might take a little longer than usual as I am going on a much-needed summer vacation.
Note: So, uh, I apparently spazzed out near the end of this production and screwed up some of the editing during the outro. Nothing major. But still... our apologies.
