Welcome to F/F/T3K15, one of the longest-running riffing groups that still somehow exists against all odds. We put out four riffs a month, and what mainly sets us apart is that we allow anyone to join in, through Google Docs' Suggestions feature. Before you start, though, here's a few things to keep in mind.

1. Stick with the formatting. You'll likely notice that the existing riffers use a particular formatting style in these documents, along the lines of this:

Story text story text story text...

Username: Witty remark that may or may not get a laugh from the audience!

More story text.

Add your riffs in the same format, mainly because it gets really annoying to fix otherwise.

2. Brevity is the soul of wit. No one wants to read your multiple-paragraph essay on why one particular line in the fic is the worst thing you've ever read. Don't make your riffs any longer than they need to be. If you really need to rant about the fic, save it for the end, where it's become a recurring staple for everyone to vent their frustrations there.

Similarly, if you see four or five riffs on a single line of the original fic, it might not be a good idea to add a sixth unless it’s on, like, a shockingly stupid twist that everyone wants to react to.

3. If you don’t have anything to add… We highly discourage what TVTropes describes as “natter”, or two users basically chatting in the riff doc itself. If the riff you’re about to write is just you agreeing/disagreeing with the above riffer and nothing else, it might be a good idea to skip it.

Also, if you notice a riff on the same line that already makes basically the same joke you’re about to, it might also be a good idea to move on to the next one.

4. Don’t get political. Yeah, politics are kind of a hot topic right now. Keep them out of the riffs, because they’d inevitably just start an argument, which distracts from the fic itself.

5. Don’t spoil the fic for others. So, you skipped ahead and discovered that the villain was really Slenderman the whole time, or something equally as stupid and out-of-nowhere. Don’t ruin it for others by alluding to or outright stating it before it actually happens in the fic, keep your foreknowledge to yourself.

6. We aren’t the Riffverse. For those unaware, the Riffverse was an old MLP riffing series that used “character riffing”, where people would RP as the ponies themselves while mocking the fics. It eventually crashed and burned for many reasons, so to avoid the same fate, we have a very strict “no character riffing” rule.

We aren’t even technically riffing in a “theater”, that nondescript location is just used when it’s convenient for a joke. But if you’re trying to riff as your OC pony that has magical powers for whatever reason, or you suddenly have Pinkie Pie appear “in the theater” and start riffing alongside you, or you have the fic “break you” so bad that you’ve been replaced with an alternate-dimension version of yourself, cut that shit out.

We’re just a group of people making fun of a terrible fanfic either at their computers or in a theater when it’s convenient. Nothing more.

7. Know the difference between "impersonating a character" and "having them appear".

You might have noticed how other riffers do sometimes act as characters, but there's a very clear distinction in those instances. There, the character that they're "impersonating" is already in the scene being riffed, and they're mocking a specific part of the fic itself.

Basically, if you've seen MST3K, think of it as the distinction between Crow mockingly saying something in the voice of a character on-screen, and having that character appear in the theater with them and make jokes alongside them. The first thing, we're perfectly okay with. The second, we're decidedly not.

Also, we have specific formatting that we use for these "impersonations", so you should follow it to match up with the other riffers:

Username: [Character Name] "Insert line here."

The [Character Name] bit is unnecessary if it's incredibly obvious who's talking, but required otherwise.

8. No in-riff infighting. Playful ribbing is perfectly fine, but if you have a legitimate problem with another riffer, you should PM me or Fallen about it. Bringing it up in the middle of the riff to the person in question is extremely bad form.

9. Read the goddamn intros. The intros to each riff tend to have important information involving the fic in question and why we're running it, or in the case of multiparts, a recap of the last installment so that you don't have to go back and read the previous month's part before starting that one. Not reading the intros will likely mean that you'll end up confused about certain jokes made or things referenced, so give them a quick once-over before you join in.

10. Commenters can only add 300 riffs per doc. Some of our riffs get relatively popular, and attract a good amount of commenters each week. In the past, this has lead to massive doc slowdowns for riffers on less powerful computers, and end-of week voting becoming a large ordeal that requires a majority of our editors helping over a period of multiple hours. Due to these cases, we have instituted a limit of 300 suggested riffs per doc. Any lines suggested past that limit will be removed, no matter the quality or context.

Got all that? Then go and try joining a riff, the current one you can participate in should always be stickied at the top of this forum.