Episode 477 - The Normandy's Nomads

Episode 477: The Normandy's Nomads

The Times Square Naked Cowboy wore it better.

Meet V. He’s a blood-soaked murder machine who’s horny as all get out and dumb as a bag of rocks. Meet Shepard. She’s horny as all get out and dumb as a bag of rocks, with the blood-soaked murder machine being assumed. Together they both kind of sort of exist in this fic which consists of setting things up without the pair of them ever meeting or even being aware of each other’s existence. But what it’s really about is listing people’s inventories, because that remains a key part of our fic experience. So grab your trillion-dollar bank transfer and your blatant McGuffin for The Normandy’s Nomads. It’s short, but oh so very stupid.

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Rebuild of Elmer Studios, year twelve

After the big changes that came last year, I was going into this one with some degree of curiosity to see how it would pan out. And based on how it went, I’m actually rather pleased to say that the changes we made to our writing process and pacing seem to have worked. Yes, we’re no longer producing episodes at the same rate, but at the same time, we’re a lot more relaxed about it and honestly, it feels better than where we were at this time last year.

Despite the pacing change, we released a comfortable twelve episodes in the last year, or a nice one per month rate (more or less). And at the same time, I feel that we were getting better overall quality, both in terms of the fics we were doing as well as our material within it. And above all else, I really feel that we were having more fun with this than we’d had in a long time.

So let’s see what happened in this last year of the slightly new look Elmer Studios.

Episode 476 - The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 7-9

Episode 476: The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 7-9

I could go my entire life never hearing the phrase ‘meat circus’ again

After endless hours of fighting zombies, clowns and sometimes even zombie clowns, we have reached the definitive conclusion-like component of the Lozer saga. And after six dozen chapters of our wondering what Lozer actually brings to this story, his true secret is finally revealed and its... nothing, actually. He’s basically irrelevant to the outcome, kind of making you wonder why he's even there in the first place. And so as Mordred does evil stuff, Daito and Sho continue to be indistinguishable and Kaneda’s bike from Akira isn't even mentioned, we bid a fond farewell to The New Adventures of the High Five. You’ll feel like you missed something but trust me, you didn't.

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 475 - The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 4-6

Episode 475: The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 4-6

Stupid noob, doesn’t even have power over time, space, death and reality. What a loser.

In this, the latest three chapter-like objects of this ongoing simulacrum of a narrative, the High Five go into a video game, fight some monsters, fight a boss and then bump into Mordred, the guy who might be the villain or something like that. But that's not what the story's actually about. It's really about Lozer who is certainly an entity that exists in space and time, and yet is also strangely fascinating despite having the personality of a brick. So join our boy as he finds new ways to blow himself up in a variety of new environments in the newest part of New Adventures of the High Five. But don't go to New York, as it's down to apply a service patch.

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 474 - The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 1-3

Episode 474: The New Adventures of the High Five, chapters 1-3

Turns out that was a vital load-bearing clown.

In this chunk of fic, Lozer achieves his lifelong dream of launching himself off a ramp in a go-kart so he can suicide bomb a giant killer clown head. And to that I say ‘live big' and also ‘what the actual hell man?’. That's right, we have more of our favourite spatio-temporal entity doing what he does best, generally hanging around and making you wonder what he's doing there. So thrill as Art3mis talks to an NPC, Aech goes through their regular stream of humiliation and Daito and Sho struggle to remember who is who for the first chunk of The New Adventures of the High Five. Which is not just more of The Newcomer. At all.

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 473 - The Newcomer, chapters 6-10

Episode 473: The Newcomer, chapters 6-10

And yet ‘don’t you still have the flamethrowing dinosaur’ is still not the dumbest thing we’ve said about this fic.

In this next snack-sized portion of The Newcomer we hit one of those moments we've come to both dread and relish, which is the introduction of the author's OC villain. This moment will raise several questions such as ‘who is he', ‘what does he want', ‘why don't the High Five just use their positions as owners of the OASIS to instantly solve the problem’ and ‘why do we even care'? But mostly the fic's about Lozer flailing around, getting an origin story, and failing to justify his existence. So get your Kaneda's Bike from Akira and your lousy gacha game mechanics for another round of The Newcomer. Now with archive action!

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.

Episode 472 - The Newcomer, chapters 1-5

Episode 472: The Newcomer, chapters 1-5

Those penguins are up to something. I know it.

When you're the world's five richest and most powerful people who literally own the internet, you can pick and choose who you hang out with. And that's why the High Five have decided that they are all deeply emotionally invested in this guy called Lozer who might be the greatest example of nominative determinism at work that I have ever seen. And if you’re thinking that there surely must be some hidden depths to this guy that you're missing, well then, you'd be entirely wrong, bucko. So it's time to put your Viking helmet on and go around looting corpses for the first part of The Newcomer. No, seriously, his name is Lozer. I'm not making that up.

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

Written by: Zogster and Rick R.