What is a MiSTing, You Ask?

A MiSting is a type of literary criticism. Now, what do you think of when you think of lit crit? Well, if you're like me, you think of hella-boring books with extremely long titles that make you want to scream by the second paragraph because all the words, not just some, are decasyllabic. A MiST, on the other hand, is funny. And not usually all that decasyllabic.

MiSTing itself is a concept borrowed from the wonderful group of people who called themselves Best Brains, Inc. and manufactured the program Mystery Science Theatre 3000 until the Sci-Fi Channel canned the show. The whole idea of MST3K is that this guy -- Mike or Joel -- and these four robots -- Gypsy, Cambot, Tom Servo and Crow -- are trapped on a satellite orbiting the Earth and are forced to watch bad movies by one of two groups of mad scientists. The only way that the satellite crew can survive the movie is by making fun of it -- thus, MiSTing became a verb! Ain't the English language wonderful? If you've never seen an episode of MST3K then for god's sake go to the video store and rent one! I reccomend Manos: The Hands of Fate and Prince of Space. This website will (probably) be here when you get back.

There are lots of other websites out there that archive MiSTs of all flavors: anime, book, movie, game, you name it -- check out Branches to Perch On to find links to a few.

So the idea of MiSTing is not originally mine, but I've borrowed it and put my own spin on it.

I'm a big Star Wars fan -- I had the original trilogy memorized by the time I was nine, collected the books, sat in line for midnight showings for both Episode I and Episode II, engaged in endless discussion with my friends about exactly how whiny Luke is, bought the Star Wars calendars, wrote fanfiction as I got older...you get the idea. I was inspired to start doing my own MiSTing by my friend L who was playing around with MiSTing some anime fanfic. I decided that my take on the whole MiSTing thing would have to have a Star Wars slant. Please picture an evil grin here.

There's a disclaimer attached to each story but, just for the sake of my own paranoia, I'm going to restate it here. The individual stories are not mine, they belong to their respective authors who have been kind enough to let me play with them. The concept of MiSTing and the various characters from MST3K -- Dr. Forrester, Michael J. Nelson, TV's Frank, & Co. -- are not mine, they're borrowed from Best Brains, who I thank daily for having gotten me through my last two years of college. The idea of Star Wars and the various characters from the trilogies -- Ben Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, etc. -- are not mine, they belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd. The MiSTings themselves, however, are mine -- copyright 2003. The character of Karra T'Serin -- who shows up eventually -- is mine, copyright 2003.

And I want it clearly understood that I am not doing this out of meanspiritedness or a desire to attack fanfic authors -- I love fanfic authors. They have given me some of the best hours of Internet enjoyment I have ever...well, enjoyed. I'm one myself. I've spent many pleasurable hours surfing through fanfic archives, laughing at the bad stuff and waiting impatiently for good authors to continue their stories. I'd be stupid to start knocking them. This is done purely out of fan enjoyment of a great series and a desire to make other people laugh.

Onwards to the stories! First we have Can't Run. This was my first MiST -- I have since completed another two, but I'm waiting on author permission for the second, so it's not going to be posted for a bit. So read this one slowly.

Go home.