MSTing

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A MSTing or MiSTing is a type of fan fiction based on Mystery Science Theater 3000. In that show, the protagonists must watch bad movies. They often make humorous quips or parodies about the scene, the lines, or about the quality of the moviemaking in general.

In MSTing, the author picks a badly written piece of text — usually a Usenet post, web page, or another fanfic — and inserts mocking comments, essentially writing a script as if the fanfic was a movie. These comments are attributed to one of the three main characters of the show. Often a prologue, epilogue, and intermissions are added in which the characters discuss a topic on the same theme as the original text though intermission segments are usually dropped if the MSTed work is short. There are some MSTings that do not use the MST3K cast; these are classified as Non-Standard MSTings, some examples of non-standard casts are the characters of Lord of the Rings, professional wrestlers, Space Godzilla and some of the the other monsters. Over time, the term MST has also been used to describe general fanfiction mockeries, without the use of the MST3K character-based joke format.

"Everything What Is Crap" has a FAQ on writing MSTings in their About page that contains guidelines and rules to writing them.

Contents

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History

The MSTing Mine credits Eric Alfred Burns as the writer of the first three MSTings back in February 1993. They were posted to the alt.tv.mst3k newsgroup. All three were responses to a troll who posted there. After that, people started posting MSTings of other works. At the end of the year, 33 MSTings were posted (29 if revised MSTings aren't counted). The "canonical" MSTing style is mostly taken from these first three, including Usenet-style quoting of the original work and script-style lines for the riffers and characters outside the theater.

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Infamous MSTed authors

Some fan fic writers have had several of their fics MSTed. This is a list of some of the more well known authors.

  • Oscar Martinez: a self-proclaimed "hermaphrodite" and self-insert lemon writer, who imagines himself as a Saiya-jin, who has had sex with, among others, Felicia, from the video game series Darkstalkers, Lola Bunny from Space Jam and Fifi Le Fume, from the cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures. His "first love", however, is the cat Artemis, from the anime Sailor Moon; indeed, the work that definitively brands him an "infamous author" is "Artemis's Lover", where, infatuated with the cat, Oscar stalks him throughout the piece and eventually seduces him into a graphically-written beastiality scene. In later fics, he has Usagi and Luna in a similar "relationship" (one infamous moment has Luna snowballing Usagi in her sleep.) He has since dropped out of the fanfiction scene, but his works will not be soon forgotten. His work also featured what is now termed "Oscarisms", for example frogned instead of frowned, tennis instead of tennis shoes and imagen for imagine. Another infamous fic of his featured the scouts wrestling against World Wrestling Federation stars.
  • Dr. Thinker: primarily a writer of Sailor Moon fanfiction (though he has also written Pokémon, Scooby Doo and Superman works), this writer is most infamously known for his writing style, which is often full of run-on sentences, spelling mistakes, confusing sentence structure, and baffling descriptions of locations and events, nick-named Thinkerisms. One example of a Thinkerism is "Grya famous on Amy." However, he has also kept in contact with the MSTing community and has shown good humor over the riffing of his works (and has MST'ed a few himself, with his signature style), and so is generally looked on as a type of "celebrity" among the community.
  • Star Ruby: a Transformers fan who creates new, female Decepticons, in the Mary Sue style. Megatron falls in love with one of them. What has made her infamous is that the Sue begins to call Megatron Meggie, and his character becomes much more emotional and, in some people's opinion, sissified. Other characters are said to be equally, if not more, Out of character.
  • Stephen Ratliff: the author of over twenty three Star Trek: The Next Generation fanfics, all revolving around the one-shot character (in the series) Marrissa Amber Flores Picard, adopted daughter of the famous Captain; Marrissa can be considered a Mary Sue character in her own right; despite barely being in her teens, she is the leader of the Kids Crew, an auxiliary staff of fellow children that is apparently able to run the Enterprise by themselves in times of emergency (which happens often). In addition, she is able to frequently outwit adults who have years of experience and are expert tacticians; this is known by some writers as the Marrissa Effect, which renders adults in a wide radius around her less competent than the least of her Kids Crew. Ratliff, like Dr. Thinker, is also known for being good-humored and openly offers his new works on a first-come basis to other MSTing authors, which has also earned him a measure of celebrity among the MSTing community. Over time, his writing style has improved markedly.
  • Peter Guerin: A prolific cartoon fanfic author who is known mainly for his Daria fanfics and essays. The most infamous of them is his first opus, a Sailor Moon/Daria crossover known as "The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle," which unMSTed came in at over 1MB of text and included a forty-page appendix giving a long history of Japan and its culture (the accuracy of which has been called into question), as well as every joke and pop-culture reference within the piece. The MSTed work more than doubled the file size and included the appendix. Two more giant works, "The Return of the Lawndale Militia" and "Triumph of the Retart" were voluntarily submitted by Guerin, who initially was receptive to MSTing works; however, he eventually broke with the community when one of his stories was MSTed without his permission. He has not stopped writing, but has left Daria fanfiction for the most part, focusing on other cartoons instead.
  • Kefka, The Dark One aka Mecha Sonic: the author of a sexually explicit and graphically violent (and badly out of character) Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction, entitled "A sorcerer, A demon and Emeralds", in which Sonic, corrupted by an evil Chaos Emerald, storms Robotropolis and quickly ousts Dr. Robotnik from power, renames the city Sonictropolis, and takes Princess Sally as a consort by force, repeatedly raping her; because of this, she is in a traumatized state for most of the story afterwards. Ten years after the event, an older Tails must fight against his old friend with the remainder of the Freedom Fighters. The fic contains many spelling and gramatical errors (e.g. barley instead of barely, to instead of too) and multiple run on sentences. The fic also includes bestiality (Robotnik's wife was a hedgehog, Snivley's son is a fox), multiple scenes of both heterosexual and homosexual rape and child molestation (where Sonic rapes a baby fox to death, as well as raping a young skunk and a Mary Sue character when she was young), graphic depictions of murder on a large scale, cannibalism (Sonic eats the remains of Geoffrey St. John), sloppy retconning of established continuity (for example, the revelation that Antoine's name is actually Tony, his accent is fake, and he wears a hairpiece, or that Robotnik is Sonic's father.), run on sentences, incest (where a Mary Sue character is raped by Robotnik, her father. Sonic also molests her and rapes Uncle Chuck in one scene.), and Kefka's unusual author notes (which some have said are as disturbing as the fic). Parts of the story take elements from Final Fantasy VI (comparing Sonic to Kefka, having the self-insert character use spells from the game and complaining when her MP's run out, and even renaming the Freedom Fighters the Returners) and VII (the destruction of a factory, the resistance fighters living in a slum and an area called Sector Seven.). The plot also contained odd elements that people found unintentionally amusing, such as a trivia scene and three Gary-Stus appearing from nowhere only to be killed by Sonic. Many found the continuity references to other games (such as Sonic CD and Knuckles Chatoix) annoying too. However, the work was never finished; the last chapter uploaded featured Sonic killing almost all of the Freedom Fighters and retaking both Sally and Tails with the implied intention of raping them. A somewhat revised version of this fic was promised, but only the first chapter was ever posted.
  • PJ: An author whose works, usually Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, have any strong female character being violently raped by a variety of monsters, often concluding with the villians triumphing over the heroes. He also had an erotic fic featuring Santa Claus called "An Elf Maiden's Chirstmas", in which an evil (and poorly described) spirit seeks to eliminate the spirit of Christmas by possessing an elven worker and forcing her to seduce Santa Claus, before stabbing him through the heart and being shot by a vengeful Mrs. Claus. His fics also contain much oddities which suggests he knows little about human anatomy (often writing that the anus and vagina are connected, or that the vagina leads directly to the stomach.)
  • David Gonterman: Self-Insert Gary Stu writer, self-proclaimed furry, and "The Internet's Most Dangerous Cartoonist". Davey-kins, as he prefers to be called, is the author of a variety of fanfics from series such as Rescue Rangers, Sailor Moon, and Sonic the Hedgehog. His works, including his most well-known piece, "Blood and Metal", tended to feature homophobia, racism, and rants on issues such as censorship, and self-pitying ego trips. He also appears to have low self-esteem issues; when his first fanfics were posted on the internet and subsequently MST'ed due to their quality, his response was to angrily remove them and demand that those who had riffed them do the same. He continues to write at his infamous Foxfire Studios website and on deviantART, launching and abandoning comic after comic.
  • Mike Rhea: Infamous in the Ranma 1/2 fandom for being a rabid Ranma/Ukyou shipper. His fics often feature the two kissing, "briefly,passionately", severe bashing of Ranma's "proper" fiancee, Akane Tendo, and long author's notes, ripping into Akane/Ranma shippers and anyone he remotely suspects of being negative about him or his work. Mike is noted for his sloppy use of commas and lack of proper spacing, poorly described sex scenes, and random crossovers with other anime, such as Tenchi Muyo.
  • Benjamin Hutchins: Author of Undocumented Features, in which a Gary-Stu of himself and his best friend manage to bring the Dirty Pair into the real world via a computer program and become their lovers. He is also noted for a lot of personal in-jokes and references to his personal life (such as which college he is at, the history of the club "Wedge Rats" that he's a member of, incredibly detailed descriptions of his home town and the surrounding geography, enemies on campus etc.), with detailed author's notes and pop-culture references. Another work of his is "Street Fighter: Warrior's legeacy" in which another Gary-Stu enters the street fighter tournament, easily defeats Cammy and becomes her boyfriend, despite the fact he describes his SI as being roughly five-foot six and weighing three hundred pounds. The character goes on to beat up Guile and Ryu, and supiciously he only briefly mentions his characters defeats. His works also feature random crossovers with Buckaroo Banzai, Doctor Who and Johnny Quest. He has also gotten better at writing with experience.
  • CATS: Infamous in several fandoms (mostly Thundercats) for writing mostly long, porn movie-styled lemons where random members of a series' cast have sex with other random members, regardless of said cast members' age, sex, or orientation.
  • Zor The Man- a Gary Stu writer in the Final Fantasy fandom, noted for a series of fics in which he and a group of original characters overshadow the Final Fantasy VII characters. The works often have gratuitous profanity, and include a crossover with all previous Final Fantasies, having Aeris fall in love with Zor, and for very poorly described fight scenes; "They fought and fought and fought and I CAN'T STANDS NO MORE!" Many of his stories contain plot holes, and violate continuity established in the previous one.
  • Tom Dyron- Author of DELTA Invasion, an Evangelion fanfic that is considered to be one of the most blatant cases of self-insertion ever. Even ignoring that, the fic would be considered bad to say the least; it is very poorly written, having innumerable spelling and grammatical errors (such as the constant use of the word "children" referring to the singular [Note - this usage is in accordance with the Japanese version Evangelion, but is not correct in English grammar]). Every character is OOC, and towards the end of the fic, the author retcons the backstory of the original series.
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Riffers, riffing, and riffs

"Riffer" is another name for one of the people who have to "watch" the MSTed material; Crow T. Robot, Mike Nelson or Joel Robinson, and Tom Servo using a standard cast, or whoever the MSTer (person who writes the MSTing) chooses for a non-standard cast.

Riffing, naturally, is what the riffers do. "Riffs" are what the characters actually say to make fun of the fanfic, post, rant, etc.

Often, riffs come from pop culture, including, but not limited to, songs, Monty Python, South Park, Star Trek, Star Wars, Saturday Night Live sketches, The Simpsons, and various webcomics and other internet debris, in a manner similar to the original series.

There are a number of different kinds of riffs that tend to recur across MSTings. Many, if not all, of them are considered to be overused clichés by veteran MSTers.

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Crow Syndrome

Crow Syndrome is when one riffer, usually Crow in the standard cast, repeatedly gives perverted comments, and another riffer, usually Mike or Joel for a standard cast, yells at him each time. The following is an example. The caret indicates source material.

> Sailor Moon took out her stick.

Crow: You mean her *stick?*
Mike: CROW!!!

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Bite me!

Often used in conjunction with the previous entry, when someone else does annoys Crow, such as correcting him or shushing him, whereupon he roars "Bite me!" occasionally tacking on, "It's fun!" This was a line used by Crow in the original series.

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Spelling/grammar flames and author bashing

Both are highly looked down upon. When the riffer points out a spelling or grammar error with a bad or no joke, it is considered a "spelling flame" or "grammar flame". When the author is directly insulted, often by directly saying that the source is terrible, it is an "author bash". The latter is considered most awful when one has not asked permission to MST the fic.

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SUUUUURGE!

A phrase, shouted out whenever the word "surge" or a variation on it appears in the MSTed material. Based on the commercials for the soft drink Surge.

> "There was an energy surge."

Mike: Energy SUUUUUUURGE!

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Dark riffs

Another often frowned-upon riff, this is when a riffer says something horrible happens to one of the characters, following up with, "The end." It expresses frustration with the quality and/or length of the MSTed material, but is considered incorrect to use early on, or to use repeatedly without interspersing other types of humor.

> Link jumped of his horse

Crow: And into a lava pool, killing him. The end.

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INTENSE... <something>... ACTION!

Used when a fanfic author is spending too much time describing something mundane. Parodies Sailor Moon's power words.

> The friends walked across the street.

Tom: INTENSE...JAYWALKING...ACTION!

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The "What?" repeat

When a character says "What?" in response to a statement, the riffers loudly repeat the previous statement:

>"We must stop him, or he'll destroy the world!"
 >"What?"

All: SHE SAID, "WE MUST STOP HIM, OR HE'LL DESTROY THE WORLD!"

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Tom's head exploding

When the fic gets so bad the riffers can't stand it, Tom Servo's head (a gumball machine) will often explode, forcing Mike to get another one. This happens with non-standard casts as well, and even, oddly enough, with human characters. This is somewhat discouraged as it has become cliche, and seasoned fans will note that Tom Servo's head exploded only four times in the original series.

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Electric Boogaloo

"Electric Boogaloo" is used when the riffed material mentions a second version of something, usually ending in the number two. Sometimes "The Sequel" or "The Next Day" is used instead. It comes from the title of the oft-maligned breakdancing movie Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

> It is time. We must unleash Robodroid 2.0.

Crow: Robodroid 2.0: Electric Boogaloo.0?

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TOGGG

From the Megane 6.7 MSTing of Ranma 1/2 fic "The War":

> She bent her knees to jump out under the table when... TOGGG!!!

That was supposed to be the sound of someone jumping on said table. After that, it was (over)used in response to any capitalized onomatopoeia, such as BOOOM! or SPLAT! It eventually got (over)used in preposition confusion, such as sitting "in" a table.


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External links

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