Revival of the Fittest: F/F/T3k15 · 7:06pm Jun 9th, 2015
Hello and guten Tag, friends. At the prodding of some friends of mine (and considering a certain someone who was supposed to have posted a similar notice by now did not do so, nudge nudge, you know who you are), I'm here to spread the gospel of... wait, no, come back! Not that kind of gospel! This is interesting stuff, I swear! ...Ah, nuts to it. I'm here to promote something, and I know I don't do that often, so allow me to bend your ear for a bit.
See, I'm a writer, first and foremost. Maybe not the best, maybe not the most prolific, but durnit, I try. But as some of my older followers/friends will know, I also dabbled in riffs for a while. It was a couple years back that I created the MLP/MST Archive, now known as PonyRiffs -- yes, I'm aware I've left it to rot, but I've more-or-less lost heart in keeping it updated now -- and played some small part in helping the riffing/MSTing community blossom for a bit. It, uh... obviously didn't take for more than a year, but we still had some fun times, I guess. I'm amazed it even lasted as long as it did.
...Anyway! I'm here with this message because one of the oldest riffing groups on the site, Fan/fic/ Theater 3000, is due for a planned revival. What is Fan/fic/ Theater 3000, you may ask? How does 'riffing' work, again? And how can I get in on this, too? Well, I could easily answer those in my own words, but I'm both feeling tired and lazy as hell, so have a copy-pasta of what a good friend of mine already wrote for me.
For those of you who don't remember (there are probably a fair number by now), the way F/F/T3K works is pretty similar to the way my own riffs worked. Hell, the F/F/T3K format was what I based my own on, as well as RatherHomely's now tragically unpublished fic. Basically, the text of the story is laid out in the doc, unedited from its source, and the riffer goes in and inserts their own snarky commentary on the events happening in the story. The standardized format for it is such:
Story text story text story text...
Username: Witty remark that may or may not get a laugh from the audience!
More story text.
The commentary tends to range from jabs at the botched meanings of ill-constructed sentences to mocking the actions and mannerisms of the characters to lampshading the ludicrous nature of the narrative. It's all good-natured and lighthearted, and even GOOD stories are able to be riffed by one who can extract enough material from them, but let's face it, worse stories just provide more to comment on and lambast. You can look at any of the riffs linked on my userpage if you need examples, though those are almost exclusively "bad" stories.
Damn. Really says something about my lack of productivity that I feel like I need to re-explain riffing to a bunch of followers who are probably here because of it.
If you want to join in the fun on this new project, F/F/T3K (or, as Ring likes calling it now, F/F/T3K15) is provided off-site via Google Drive as per site rules against publishing riffs and other MST3K-esque works as stories, and this bit of freedom means we can leave the docs open for others to leave comments right on the text even if they're not on our list of people with editing access. You can insert your own quips and jabs alongside ours by putting the doc into suggestion mode (unless Ring can default it to that, in which case that's less work on your part) and typing in your line in the "Name: Comment!" format detailed above. If we like the joke, there's a good chance it'll find its way into the text of the document. So yay, you're a helper!
So, yes, that's pretty much how it's going to work. For anyone wanting to get in on this little project, all you need to do is drop a reply in this thread, either to Fallen Prime or RingmasterJ5, and you're in like a dirty shirt. Along with the "core" riffing crew of myself, Ring, Fallen, twow443, and KillerSteel, a number of others will be present as well, and anyone else is more than welcome to toss their hat into the ring (dohoho). As for what story will be targeted, well, that's a surprise. And we all know that surprises are awesome.
Case in point.
The set date for the riff to begin is the 13th of June, this Saturday, at approximately 10 PM EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). Yes, that is indeed the very same date of the ever-hyped/dreaded 100th episode of MLP, making that day all the more momentous. Be sure to have replied to the thread if you're interested in joining, but if you aren't, that's fine too; the doc will go live to the public at a later date, and you'll be able to revel in the snark we've cooked up for the mystery story in question all you want. Fun!
Thanks for your time, guys. And we do hope to see you there.
