Zelda Science Theater 3000: FAQs

Have a question about ZST3k? I try to answer them here!

Q: When do you update the site?
A: I will try to update weekly on the weekend (Saturday or Sunday! It's a surprise!). Also, RL will possibly interfere with my online endeavors and that may set things back a bit.

Q: What is a MST?
A: MST3k stands for Mystery Science Theater 3000, a very popular television show that had three little commentators making fun of the movie (it doesn't sound funny when I say it like that, but the show is hilarious). A MST is derived from that. It is a work that takes a fanfic, story-- or anything in text, frankly-- and then proceeds to mock it, with its little "commentators."

Q: What do you MST?
A: On this site will be flames and fanfiction, which I proceed to rip into little pieces. I generally do fanfiction only, from the genres that I'm most familiar with. I like to know what I'm talking about. Various genres I MST are The Legend of Zelda (my favored lot), Digimon, Pokemon, Harry Potter, and Final Fantasy. Other MSTable things are flames, spam, articles, and generally anything stupid written in text. The only thing I can't MST would be material that is well written or copyrighted material, like books and movie scripts.

Q: How do you read a MST? I'm SO confused.
A: The story being made fun of is the one bolded, with little arrows like so ">" in front of each new line. The commentators are in play format, NOT bolded, and are generally separated from the bold text by a blank line.

Q: So it's ONLY in text? Isn't that boring/hard/really retarded?
A: No, it's not. It can be done with almost anything. For example, I would like to move from textual MSTing to Flash MSTing sometime in the near future. There's plenty of stupid Flash movies and I've seen MSTing successfully done on Newgrounds.com (they pulled it off, but it was kinda bad itself in some parts). That would be awesome. Also, I've seen people MST comic strips. I'd love to do that sometime, too. I'll stick with fanfiction for now, but I'm keeping my eyes open for other opportunities.

Q: Isn't MSTing kind of mean?
A: To be blunt, yes. If the writer could care less, no. It completely depends on the writer and whether it bothers him or not. I have to admit that MSTing is not done with me intending to be nice to the fic. MSTing is obviously done to say: "This is a fanfic. This is your brain. This is a fanfic on drugs. This is your brain activity flatlining. Don't let this happen to you."
As for the writer, MSTers vary on policies. Some just take the story (not polite) and most with a sense of propriety ask for permission to use it. It is the unspoken MSTer's code not to attack the writer personally, but some MSTers do poke fun at writers in the name of "good fun." There are some pretty cool people out there who have written one bad, horrible scummy fic that somehow found its way online. ...of course, there are also the really unfortunate people who continue to write poo even after common sense has kicked in.

Q: Who are the commentators of your pieces?
A: Characters off of The Legend of Zelda, the best video game ever. Nabooru is a Gerudo thief, Link is the hero, and Navi is a fairy. Thus, the name of the site: ZST3k for Zelda Science Theater 3000.

Q: What is with those bad guys? What's the story?
A: The bad guys are StarDragon Blue and her posse of evil stupidity. You can always count on Jigglypuff, her top henchman, to be around, but every now and then you will get another henchman like Blue Keaton, Unicorn, Ron Presley, or Topaz989 and the rabid monkey. After a while sticking people in got tedious, so I'm definitely not going to do it anymore.
The story is that StarDragon Blue wants to take over the world by subjecting it to the worst fanfic ever made, which will melt their brains and enable her to take over quietly and perfectly. (I still think that she could succeed with "Zelda: Now and Then.")

Q: How long does it take to write a MST?
A: A traditional MSTing usually consists of a long fic or a couple of short ones, interspersed regularly with "skits." (I hate my skits since I can't write standalone humor, so you won't see any here on the website; just pure MSTing, plain and simple.) For one particular loooong MST, it took me 3 months to finish. I can't just MST whenever. I need to be in the right mood. And preferably, my MSTs should not be written late at night. Jokes that seem hilarious at 1 AM rarely are at 3 PM. However, I seem to have gotten better in all of my MSTing areas of expertise, and I have been on a roll lately. So hopefully you will be able to see a good deal of MSTing pop up that is all good. ;)

Q: Boy, you must work pretty hard on them.
A: I guess you could say that.

Q: Do you have a life?
A: I hate FAQs.