Evilness versus Effectiveness: A visual representation

The opening to Episode 409 featured one of our favourite types of sketches; one where we attempt to over-analyse the fanfics we read and apply some sort of strange logic to them. The 'evilness versus effectiveness' idea was an attempt to quantify something that logically couldn't be quantified, but of course, that wouldn't stop us anyway.

And while the opening sketch contained descriptions of the various charts, I thought that it would be fun to put them in a more visual form ti give a better idea of what we were talking about.

Dyron-ify your life

While doing research for and collecting the chapters of The Apocalyptic Battle, I discovered this artistic gem, actual artwork of our "hero", Tom Dyron. (Note: link goes to a mirror as the original source does not allow hotlinking. Also original source contains material hazardous to the human soul). While good for a gaffaw or two, I put it aside to concentrate on more data-mining and also to spare my retinas from any further discovery of related artistic endeavors.

However, a tip from an anonymous reader made me realise that I wasn't the first to find this lost artistic treasure.

Looking For Badfic in all the wrong places

While the Rebuild of Delta is a lot of laughs, going over old material is not the full extent of what we’d like to do here. We’ve already put down a “new” badfic and have several more lined up or underway and more the a few potentials in reserve. Furthermore, we’re also out and searching for new fic fodder, looking to broaden our horizons and let loose with whatever “quality” material the interwebs have to offer us.

To go with this, I’m extending an invitation for those who have fic “recommendations” of their own that they’d like to see riffed here. Be it from series/franchises/whatever that we’ve already covered or if it’s all new crap that has sprung up in the last decade or so, we’re interested in seeing what else is out there. You can either post here or e-mail us at elmerstudios00 (at) gmail.com with a title, synopsis and any other helpful notes that you may have. Also, please no NC-17 material; I like my brane where it is, thank you.

Fanfic Retrospective – Fate of the Children

Fate of the Children wasn’t an early fic for us (Episode 38, so it’s not like we’re green at this point) but was one of those “big deals”. It helped cement our reputation with Evangelion Mary Sue fic, as well as presenting us with a whole mess of situations that would keep reoccurring. Besides, that, there’s no two words about it: FotC was just plain bad. It had an unbearable, over-powered, omnipotent, always-right Mary Sue, one who was never once called on their BS by the others around them. It replaced a canon character with a horrible and inane OC just so that the Sue could sleep with another character. And not just did it crap all over Evangelion’s canon, themes and concepts, but it marginalized the canon to the degree of making them redundant, save for serving as shallow love interests.

It’s also a fic that will not only never see a Rebuild, but I do actually regret MSTing. This might sound odd, but there are a number of genuinely good reasons for this.

Rebuilding Elmer Studios – Natasha

Natasha was considered to be the “leader” of the B-Team in-world. Why is unclear, but it probably was simply because she was the first to appear, and had a degree of popularity. While she only appeared in five episodes, those five do seem to have left a lasting impression, although that could simply be because she was the first on-scene.

However, Natasha was in a unique situation amongst the B-Team. She’d already been re-tooled not once but twice before the Rebuild of Elmer, which meant that in an interesting way, she required the least amount of work of any character. At the same time, she is the most and least changed.

The Random Delta Invasion Episode Generator

After years of running on an "image", the Random Delta Invasion Episode Generator is back! Updated with a copy of the original source, it is now fully functional and ready for some hot random action. And who knows, it may yet be updated...


At Misato's apartment, Tom and his homies are sleeping. John, Charles and that guy from RaXephon with the bad Kamille Vidan discuss the past and fruit. Meanwhile, at NERV, Kaji and The Baroness are discussing how awesome Tom is. Tom and the gang go out playing Girlfriend of Steel when suddenly the Invador Alert sounds! Thieteen with options for another season Invadors will arrive in drag so the Children arrive in Gendo's Shagin' Wagon. Nerv deploys no EVAs. Tom immediately seeks out the most powerful Invador which has the body of a PIF Donkey, the head of an Ewok, the arms of Boris Yeltsin, the legs of the Abraham Lincon Memorial and lots of tatoos. The Invador attacks Tom with wrestling slashfics. Tom is almost defeated but then he jerks off and destroys the Invador by mashing its pinky. Then he goes and rescues Auska. After the battle, the kids go to have a short holiday in Pyongyang where they discuss how hard the battle was and spend all their yens. At NERV, Ritsuko discovers  Borjarnons burined in a mine.
Up next, Takeshi's Castle!

Trolled by Imperial Order

From Hero Games Book of the Empress, we have what is either a hillarious coincidence or some brilliant trolling:

There you have it. Invadors come from another dimension!

Rebuilding Elmer Studios - Rick

When we began the “Rebuild” process, we took a look at each character to decide what worked, what didn’t work, what needed to be changed and what could be improved. As much as we wanted to modernize, clean up and improve, we also wanted to keep the fundamentals of what made the characters themselves intact. The result became something of a balancing act between the old and the new.

And in many ways, Rick represented the biggest challenge.

What worked?

Rick was the “oldest” of the three, having made his debut in 1994-1995 or something. In many ways, he was older then that, as I’d been using the name “Rick R. Mortis” or variations thereof for years before that. The initial premise was that he would be the “everyman” of the team, one that would be the most ‘normal’ and relatable of them. He became something of an anchor between Dan’s idiot slackerness, Rebecca’s trigger-happy menace and Tsuneo’s all too easy fanboy rages.

Instead, he would sit back, relax, take it easy, not get too worked up over things and generally have fun at laughing at the fic. He was the voice of reason, the sane one, the guy who could say “it’s just a bad fanfic, not like it’s the end of the world or the like” while everyone was about to have their heads explode. It was those traits that made him useful, especially in the particularly nonsense or bad fics.

Finally, Rick’s “struggling comic book writer/artist” thing gave us a lot of material to work with; its something that got stronger over time as we used it more and more often.

Rebuilding Elmer Studios

So, why the rebuild?

There are a number of reasons, but the core of it came down to this: DELTA Invasion is my favourite bad fanfic, a fact that you’re probably aware of if you’ve been reading this Blog (Or have known me for the last decade or so). Our MSTings of DELTA Invasion were considered classics and some of our best material. Hell, the thing got its own damn TV Tropes page.

However, for all that, the MSTigns have not aged well. In general, it came down to three things – 1) References that, while contemporary and/or witty at the time now were meaningless or cringingly backwards. 2) Stuff that I thought was funny over a decade ago but now was cringe-inducingly bad and 3) References to other Fanfics and MSTings, both Elmer Studios ones and others that made no sense out of context. This last one was particularly difficult as it relied upon communities or individuals that were no longer in existence or had vanished from the face of the interweb.

This was the seed of the “Rebuild” of DELTA. To take the best of the old and rebuild it with new stuff that a) Hopefully wouldn’t age as badly b) wouldn’t be as crap and c) wouldn’t rely on assumed knowledge. However, to do this, one very big step had to be taken.

Rick R's fiction blog

After Rick quit making fun of bad fanfic, he began writing his own bad fanfic. Go figure.

Anyways, I'm putting together an archive of my stuff, as well as some general ramblings and bumf. Go take a look if you're interested

Rick R's "bottom six" best worst fics

I’ve read a lot of badfic. Gord alone knows how much, but… lots. But even amongst all that crap, there’s a few that stick out and have strange soft spots in my heart. So here are my top (or bottom) “best worst” fics. All of them are available at the Elmer Studios Archive for your “pleasure”.

(dis)Honourable Mention: The Dark Spiner

Had Elmer Studios still been in the MSTing business c2003, then this one would have been in the lineup. It’s your basic idiotic, horribly over-powered, centre of the universe Gary Stu (Who shares their name with the author, no less!) in a loopy, incoherent fic that isn’t so much read as it’s shouted at you by your monitor. Added to that, it somehow became the sort of fanon that gets mistaken for canon by idiots, which only increases the suck.

(dis)Honourable Mention: Robotech Sentinels Rubicon

Sentinels Rubicon isn’t a fanfic, but rather it’s a professionally published comic. Yet, it manages to reach levels of stupid and crap that makes some of the worst fanfic you’ve ever read seem professional by comparison. It manages to be bad on every level; bad art, bad writing, bad chracterisation, bad plot, bad inking, bad toning, bad lettering and even bad staples. And then when you go behind the scenes and realize the sheer levels of BS that went into the creation of the comic, it gets even worse.

On the other hand, it gave me the White Light Of EEEEE, so I can’t fully hate it.

The return of Elmer Studios

Back in the wild, heady days of the 1990s, one of the "Big Things" was MSTings. A cultural phenomena of the early days of the internets, MSTings of fanfic and other material, inspired by Mystery Science Theater 3000, was a big thing. In short order, zillions of MSTers were leaping at the burgeoning fanfic "industry" providing laughs and "alternative criticism" based not only on the original MST3K cast of Mike/Joel and the Bots, but also using their own original characters, settings and situations.

Elmer Studios was one of those groups. And I'm one of the people from Elmer Studios. Hi! I'm the "Rick R." half of it, who had a hand in 150 151 MSTings as well as a wealth of other material and side stories.

For a while, it was a hell of a lot of fun. Relentless mockery and laughs at some of the epic badness out there was amusing. The combination of community and entertainment was driving and encouraging, as well as the never-ending "I cannot believe something could be this bad" level of bile fascination that sent us looking for more. Along the way we made friends, created running gags, discovered some epic badness and maybe, just maybe, launched an internet legend or two. Fun times.

But then, real life happened.

For the Elmer Studios team, it became a hard truth. Jobs, changing schedules, lack of free time and other such matters took their toll. The riffers were struggling to find time and energy to work, which resulted in a slowdown and eventually a halt. Projects were abandoned and left unfinished by the roadside, vanishing into the depths of e-mail archives and dead hard disks. With the imminent demise of Geocities, it seemed like Elmer Studios would simply vanish into internet history.

It didn’t. One thoroughly awesome guy took it upon himself to archive the entire content of the site, preserving it for all time. Likewise, the memories of certain fanfics would never dim.

And then, inspired by these things as well as a particularly silly conversation, a pair of MSTers decided “let’s get back into the game”. What became a single idle thought quickly snowballed into a whole new MSTing, with plans for a lot, lot more.

This Blog will be used to post new MSTings as well as host other information and the occasional ramblings of one (or both) of the writers. It's also a handy place if you have comments, questions, feedback or general jeffs. You can also e-mail us at elmerstudios00 (at) gmail.com as well.

It's good to be back.