Episode 215 - Robotech Defenders #1

Episode 215: Robotech Defenders #1

Pointless exposition must be some sort of bizarre, ingrained, solar system-wide cultural trait. They have to exposit whenever an opportunity presents itself, regardless of the appropriateness of the situation.

Buried in the depths of licensed comics hell, lost to the mists of pre-Crisis DC comes Robotech Defenders, the part of the franchise that has nothing at all to do with the rest of the franchise and will never be mentioned ever again. Instead, what it is amounts to a festival of eighties sci-fi clichés as a team of one-dimensional token aliens search for giant robots left behind by the Precursors to fight a race of Space Kobolds who have the power to telekinetically explode your head. And if that actually does manage to make sense, well, you’re doing better then me and I own the damn comic. Still, it has a Pterodactyl, and that makes everything better.

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Rick R

Episode 214 - Rebuild of DELTA, part nine

Episode 214: Rebuild of DELTA, part nine

Considering that NERV seems to consist of four staff, four pilots, two rooms and no weapons, an eight-man ship makes perfect sense.

The pilot's barking mad and the emergency systems are fitted rectally, but what's there to worry about? So what if the ship's completely untested and we're all untrained? And so what if our pilot doesn't know what he's doing or our flight path takes us through the sun? So what if the fate of all humanity is resting on this insane mission that has been organized and run with less oversight than your average school fete while heading to a previously unknown world, travelling out far further than any prior human experience? Tom made some cheap jokes about his arse, so it’s all fine.

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

Episode 213 - The Starwatcher Legacy

Episode 213: The Starwatcher Legacy

Hooray, it’s quest dialogue! Come to save us from the ambiguous characters and their poorly defined relationships!

For Some fanfics, Original characters are what's really important. And for this Star Wars: The Old Republic fanfic all you really need is to drop some OCs in and let it go. Oh, sure if you're the indulgent type you could introduce or define them, and if you really must you could give them something to actually do besides run through quest dialogue and repeat each other's lines, and yes if you're one of those crazy types who wants readers to get something out of a story you could make a piece about their relationships actually include relationships. But really, all you need is a half dozen identical characters, the city of Seattle, random wandering Sith, one million Colicoids, Doc, Quinn, the laughing monkey and Jedi Master Freddie

Riffers: Dan, Maya Gold, Celena Harte and Tsuneo Tateo
Written by: Zogster

Episode 212 - Rebuild of DELTA, part eight

Episode 212: Rebuild of DELTA, part eight

Gendo really is a jerk. However, he’s a jerk on a much higher level than any other jerk you can think of. He’s operating on such a level of supreme jerkiness that it becomes existential.

If you love Delta Invasion, then you must like it's most important content: Filler. Every chapter is overflowing with it, but chapter eight goes one step further. While there's the usual suspects; Tom buys computer games, Ritsuko performs synch tests, NERV's staff reiterate things that we allready knew and everyone talks about how John is Special, this one provides something new and fresh for us. That's right, its an all-filler Invador fight! Thrill as the one battle is not only drawn-out ad infinitum, but also is repeated no less then five times for your reading pleasure(?). The appearance of a brand new never-mentioned-before and never-to-be-seen-again plot device is just an added bonus. Plus, the introduction of the most interesting character in all of Delta Invasion! Both of him!

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

Rebuilding Elmer Studios - Delta Invasion

So far, the majority of the Postmadern Era of Elmer Studios has been in the form of “rebuild” MSTings, ones that are re-workings of older material, specifically Delta Invasion. As has been mentioned before, “rebuilding” Delta was a substantial motivation for getting this whole project started, and, in many ways, it formed a style guide for everything that was to come.

However, there was one big problem with the Rebuild of Delta concept. Simply put, there were no “raw”, un-MSTed copies of the fanfic known to exist anywhere on the Interwebs (Wheather this was a bad thing was another matter, of course). The original was hosted on a Geocities page, which wasn’t a good start. Added to that, the fic was pulled from that site sometime over a decade ago because it no longer met the author’s “vision for Evangelion” (That it had become an internet laughing stock because it sucked might have also factored into that). No traces of it could be found in Web Archives, and even the most intense Googling turned up blanks. In short, our old MSTings were the only copies of Delta Invasion left out there.

However, we would not be deterred.

Episode 211 - Fur and Metal

Episode 211: Fur and Metal

Clearly upon landing on a hostile, unknown, alien world, the best thing to do is to run around with a heavily armed force, picking fights with opponents who’s capabilities are not understood while taking contracts from people you don’t know

When writing Alternate Universe fanfic, there comes a point where you're so Alternate Universe that you might as well be writing something entirely original and be done with it. This fic doesn't so much pass that point as it leaps straight over it and keeps on going. A Furry Alternate Universe Battletech/Alternate Universe Zoids crossover (And you thought you'd never see anyone type that), this fic manages to catapult from dumb to dumber with each block of unnecessary exposition, and boy are there a lot of those go go around. It's blatantly unfinished, and yet it's still far too long for this MSTer!

Riffers: Rebecca Bartley, Natasha Isavia, Matt Simmons and Rick R. Mortis
Written by: Rick R

Episode 210 - Rebuild of DELTA, part seven

Episode 210: Rebuild of DELTA, part seven

And out on the battlefield, abandoned and trapped inside his powered down entry plug, John cries himself to sleep.

When writing an unknowable and alien enemy, there will inevitably come a time where the plot will require their motivations to be made known. When that does occur, it is a hard thing to pull off, and needs to be handled with care and delicacy in order to be done well. In other words, not like this. That's right, we get to discover the true secret of the Invadors, and trust me, it's even dumber then expected, and that's in a chapter where different elements are fighting for Dumb. In fact, about the only good thing I can say about this chapter is that it's not an Italian restaurant that the kids go to.

Also: John Barren is special. Just keep telling yourself that.

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