Episode 482 - Dire Straights, chapters 5-8

Episode 482: Dire Straights, chapters 5-8

But only if they're from the Bioroid region of France. Otherwise they're just sparkling alien invaders

In this next riveting portion of Dire Straights our protagonist flies halfway across the world, has a food court pizza and flies back. Not only that, but much of the rest of its runtime is spent on reminding us that far more interesting people exist and that we could be reading about them instead. But in the meantime we get to go on an awkward date, attend a joyless Christmas party and maybe, just maybe, fight in the space robot war. So get your medal of honour and arbitrary promotions for the next four semi-digested lumps of Dire Straights. And so we did.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 481 - Dire Straights, chapters 1-4

Episode 481: Dire Straights, chapters 1-4

He'd tried to lick the night vision in the hope that it was lime flavoured

Dire Straights is the story of a guy. He fills in forms, sits in waiting rooms, has dinner, explains uniform regulations, describes televisions and, uh, well, I feel like there was something else I was forgetting. Oh yeah, that's right, aliens attack. That's it. So who is this man and why do we care about him? Well to be honest, the fic doesn't even bother giving us the slightest clue or reason, so take that how you will. But in the meantime, grab your MARPAT and your Panasonic plasma television for the first four lumps of Dire Straights. You get your fanfic for nothing and your riffs for free.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 480 - A Helping Hand, chapters 5-6

Episode 480: A Helping Hand, chapters 5-6

They won't be as happy when Egypt is over-run by Triffids.

In order to end world hunger, the Sagara Foundation has developed a radical plan to transform vast swathes of lifeless desert wasteland into fertile farms. What does this have to do with the rest of the story? Nothing at all, actually, but the fic wastes a huge chunk of time on it no less, which I'll take since its not more descriptions of people playing video games. Still there is a chunk of that as some very stupid people take part in a nonsense battle for no apparent reason and are saved because only one person has a few basic ideas. So get your orbital killsat and your non-explosive catapult for the final part of A Helping Hand. No, they're not helping in the slightest.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 479 - A Helping Hand, chapters 3-4

Episode 479: A Helping Hand, chapters 3-4

They want the experience to be as realistic as possible, which is why you can dress up as a Battletoad and climb Everest with Batman

Gunner33 is hot. She's also a creep who gets her laughs through harassing and intimidating others, but that’s entirety okay because she's hot. I only bring this up because these two points are going to be repeated ad infinitum throughout this next chunk of fic. But if you don’t want that you can have more of everyone vomiting about how amazing Sagara is instead, and I don’t know which is worse. So, grab your light cycle and your generic shonen protagonist apparel for the next portion of A Helping Hand. They’re not helping, really.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 478 - A Helping Hand, chapters 1-2

Episode 478: A Helping Hand, chapters 1-2

Ready player one is the loneliest number

Meet Captain Sagara! Who’s Captain Sagara, you may ask? Well don’t worry, because everyone in the universe will talk him up at every single occasion throughout the entirety of the fic. So if you want to know how amazing he is, how wealthy he is, how he’s the best at everything, how he forces all of his suborndinates to dress just like him and his incredibly creepy relationship with his foster sister, this is the fic for you. So get your standard issue sword, your standard issue headband and your standard issue overbearing machismo posturing for A Helping Hand. And remember, sick girl equals morality.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 477 - The Normandy's Nomads

Episode 477: The Normandy's Nomads

The Times Square Naked Cowboy wore it better.

Meet V. He’s a blood-soaked murder machine who’s horny as all get out and dumb as a bag of rocks. Meet Shepard. She’s horny as all get out and dumb as a bag of rocks, with the blood-soaked murder machine being assumed. Together they both kind of sort of exist in this fic which consists of setting things up without the pair of them ever meeting or even being aware of each other’s existence. But what it’s really about is listing people’s inventories, because that remains a key part of our fic experience. So grab your trillion-dollar bank transfer and your blatant McGuffin for The Normandy’s Nomads. It’s short, but oh so very stupid.

Riffers: Dan, Rebecca Bartley, Tsuneo Tateo and Rick R. Mortis

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Rebuild of Elmer Studios, year twelve

After the big changes that came last year, I was going into this one with some degree of curiosity to see how it would pan out. And based on how it went, I’m actually rather pleased to say that the changes we made to our writing process and pacing seem to have worked. Yes, we’re no longer producing episodes at the same rate, but at the same time, we’re a lot more relaxed about it and honestly, it feels better than where we were at this time last year.

Despite the pacing change, we released a comfortable twelve episodes in the last year, or a nice one per month rate (more or less). And at the same time, I feel that we were getting better overall quality, both in terms of the fics we were doing as well as our material within it. And above all else, I really feel that we were having more fun with this than we’d had in a long time.

So let’s see what happened in this last year of the slightly new look Elmer Studios.