What Does MSTing Mean?
Fandom CultureMocking a piece of writing by interleaving it with running commentary, in the style of the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. A badfic gets reposted line by line with jokes inserted between the lines.
MSTing in Practice
MSTing was a major comedic form in 1990s and early-2000s fandom: commentators would take a notoriously bad fic and 'riff' it the way MST3K's silhouetted hosts riffed bad movies. Entire archives of MSTings existed, complete with recurring host characters and framing skits. The practice declined as fandom norms shifted toward not redistributing authors' work without permission and not publicly dogpiling amateur writers; its gentler descendant is sporking, and its spirit survives in livetweeted bad-movie threads. The term remains useful fandom history, since MSTings shaped how older fandom talked about badfic.
Example usage
"Someone unearthed a 1998 MSTing of that infamous fic and the jokes still hold up."
Related Terms
Sporking
Mocking a bad fic by quoting it with running humorous commentary — the successor to MSTing. The name evokes wielding a spork against deserving prose.
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Badfic
Fanfiction that is spectacularly, often legendarily bad — sometimes sincerely, sometimes on purpose. Fandom's relationship with badfic spans mockery, affection, and outright canonization of works like My Immortal.
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Trollfic
A fic written to be deliberately, provocatively terrible — bad spelling, absurd plotting, and escalating outrage as performance art. The reader's bafflement is the intended product.
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Crack
Deliberately absurd fanfiction — premises and events too ridiculous for canon, written for pure comedy. The name implies you would have to be on something to write it, or that the fic itself is addictive nonsense.
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More Fandom Culture Terms
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