To try and actively combat some of the stigma around fanfiction, I’ve decided to include fanfic in this feature going forward. And naturally the first to be talked about here is for Super Smash Bros, as its fanfiction scene is one I’ve been actively involved in.
Let me set the stage first. You probably know already that Smash Bros is a crossover fighting game by Nintendo. Assist Trophies are one of the many items that appear in it, which summon a randomly chosen character to aid whoever activates it. And it is these characters that Sidelines: Tales of the Assist Trophies gives the spotlight to.
Like many Smash Bros fanfiction, it places the cast within a location known as Smash Mansion, where all characters are free to interact between matches in a vaguely defined tournament. The Assist Trophies mainly stick to their own section of the mansion, where they can be summoned into a battle at any time, but fighters and other connected characters regularly appear.
Sidelines is primarily episodic, with each chapter focusing on different characters and their often chaotic interactions at Smash Mansion. This gives it a lot of variety, as you never know who gets the spotlight next. Another part of that variety is how the story balances comedy and serious moments, with a healthy mix of both.
Crossovers such as Smash Bros are at their best when they go for the deep cuts, and Sidelines has that energy of digging into the overlooked and letting it shine. You won’t often see people write from the perspective of a Klaptrap or Starman.
There are also overarching plots and clear continuity tying all the chapters together. An alliance of villainous Assist Trophies headed by Mother Brain is introduced early on, with their schemes sometimes getting dedicated chapters and other times progressing as just one part of a chapter.
The story goes for a mix of treating the characters as aware of their video games while the events in them genuinely happened. For example Yuri and Alph recognize each other because they met at an event for characters in Wii U games, while in another chapter Knuckles has a flashback to the events of Sonic Forces. This duality is key for enabling one of the reoccurring conflicts in the story.
Within the broader Smash fandom, a character being announced as an Assist Trophy tends to be met with mourning by their fans, with a notable amount taking it as an insult. Being included as anything other than a fighter gets seen as worse than full on exclusion by many fans.
The Assist Trophies themselves are aware of and in some bitter cases have that attitude themselves, while others outright mock them for not being real fighters. Not every chapter deals with this attitude, but it is a fairly consistent presence from the start.
Which brings me to why I enjoy Sidelines. It celebrates the fact that these characters are in Smash Bros at all, that there’s more to it than just the playable roster. It helps that there are quite a few Assist Trophies I prefer over some of Ultimate’s new fighters, like Takamaru or Sukapon. In fact reading the story even made me a fan of the Badge Arcade Rabbit, named Baito by the author.
Naturally as work of fanfiction it’s intended for readers already familiar with Smash Bros and the characters within it. But for those into the full roster of Nintendo characters or any specific Assist Trophies, I definitely recommend it.
As of this writing Sidelines is still updating, though not on a set schedule. You can read it on Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net.