For our one-year anniversary, we indulge our theater-loving, literature nerd selves and dive into absurdism. Could Tom Stoppard’s renowned play actually be… fanfiction? Yes, obviously it is, but we discuss all the angles of that question before meandering through the text of the play in search of direction or meaning. It is an acceptable diversion on the road to our inevitable, incomprehensible deaths.

The story is not available for free under copyright law, but check your local library!

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

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Susan Pensevie and Sarah Williams become friends in a fanfic that has difficulty living up to the awesomeness of its premise. Sarah decides she’s in love with some creepy dude who hit on her back when she was fifteen. As your personal savior, Aslan will definitely set you up on dates. Susan regains her faith through the power of mansplaining. 

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfreyes

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

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Our first Fan-Q Award winner, from fandom stalwart Deb Walsh. Could it be that Fox Mulder’s sister… was abducted by aliens, exactly as it appeared that she was? The only way to be sure is to return to Mulder’s home island of Martha’s Vinyard, eat chicken pot pie, and forensically analyse an extremely grody old pillowcase.

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrmelody

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

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A glasses switcheroo leads into a time-travelling adventure that aims to explain various oddities of the Smurfs setting. We go off on tangents musing about Smurf spores and whether the entire population of Smurf village are Squibs. The author wins a bet against their sibling, thus averting the Great Smurf Wars.

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrglasses

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

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Urusei Yatsura turns into deadly serious political intrigue in this novel from the dawn of the internet age. Tory is surprised to learn that the source material does not address Lum’s culpability as an imperialist, enslaving warmonger. Everyone gets a heterosexual romantic partner, up to and including Megane. The answer to the question of the title is “no.”

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrdream

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

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We return to Sailor Moon with a fanfic based on Sailor Stars, the most high school shenanigan-y season of the show. Minako and Yaten are a miracle romance, as in it’s a miracle that Yaten puts up with the company of any other sentient being. Shakespeare is quoted liberally. Usagi and Seiya explain to their friends what a donut is.

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrminako

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

Witness our tweets at https://twitter.com/RetroFanfic

Despite harrowing technical difficulties, MSTing archivist Yesmar joins us to discuss Adam Cadre’s treatment of Jim Theis’s infamously blundering Conan pastiche. “Crimson droplets of escaping life fluid” flow freely. Wenches are an excellent source of exposition. The riffer’s major challenge is choosing what NOT to make fun of.

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrargon

Don't forget to check out The MSTing Canon: http://www.mstingcanon.com/Home.html

Next episode: Sailor Moon - Romeo and Minako

bitly/rfminako

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

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Special guest Rosie helps us illuminate the darkness of the early 2000s Kingdom Hearts fandom. Riku is really into Sora, I mean seriously. Cid is British… ish. A cute moogle helps counterbalance the moody teenage angst.

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Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrhearts

Next episode: MSK - The Eye of Argon

bitly/rfrargon

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

Witness our tweets at https://twitter.com/RetroFanfic

A zany space adventure featuring Han Solo and his best bud/co-pilot… no, not Chewie, I obviously mean the irrepressible Herlivon Xalnodest. In trying to carry a rancor to Tatooine, which will become more wasted: the interior of the Millenium Falcon, or our protagonists, from all the space booze they're drinking?

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrrancor

Three friends read old fanfiction that they think might be good. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are not.

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic 

Send us emails at [email protected]

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RetroFanficRetrospective/

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Early 20th-century author Maurice Leblanc breaks several rules of good taste by putting his own character Arsène Lupin up against another author’s cash cow. Who will win? Who will lose? Whose name will be forced to change for proprietary reasons?

Link to the story: bit.ly/rfrholmes

Check out our website at bit.ly/retrofanfic

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