From left to right: Edrobot, Gamzee Makara, Dave Strider, Jake English, Karkat Vantas, Nepeta Leijon, Pinkie Pie. Not pictured: Caliborn, Kankri, Caius Ballad, Phelous, Lord English.
HOW CAN YOU THINK OF THAT MISRIBLE PILE OF LAMINATED THINKPAN EXCREMENT AS ANYTHING BUT AN ABOMINATION OF THE WRITTEN WORD?
— Karkat Vantas
Jake English's Mysterious Theater of Scientific Romance from the Year 3000 is an MST series written by Edrobot, centering around characters from Homestuck riffing really bad fanfiction. The twist is that Jake, canonically liking absolutely all movies, here likes absolutely all fanfics, and takes most of them a bit too seriously. Hilarity Ensues.
You can find it here
, on edrobot's blog. His tumblr is found here.
Works riffed so far include:
- Thirty Hs (Complete)
- Burston's Sorrow (Complete)
- Homestuck high (Complete)
- Hinata Ends With The Soul Calibur (Complete)
- Dave Stdider Pokemon Traner (In Progress)
- Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami (In Progress)
- Sonichu (In Progress)
- Hellstorm Evangelion (In Progress)
- Hart Shaped Love (Complete)
Tropes featured in this series include:
- Adaptational Wimp: Lord English, who is reduced to being a Harmless Villain for comedic purposes.
- Arc Villain: Caius Ballad, The Prophet Gilesbie, and Monarch end up being this in seasons 2, 3 and 4.
- Brick Joke: In one chapter, wolf says that Big Daddy will keep stomping on Troll Phelous D1's spine until October. Come October, Big Daddy finishes his attack, and Troll Phelous D1 escapes.
- Breakout Character: Electra Pendragon went on to become a major character in Edrobot's other fic, Justice Society of Japan.
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase
- Dave, Karkat, Lant, Electra and Pinkie Pie are all Caustic Critics of one breed or another, though Pinkie cares more about cracking jokes than making fun of the work.
- Alfred leans more towards being a Compassionate Critic, but Karkat, Lant, and even Jake dip into this when they try to explain why a work is so bad.
- Deus ex Machina: Parodied in the season 4 finale. After freeing Zeus from Granny Goodness, Zeus immediately solves all the plot threads without any sort of explanation.
- Parody Sue: Electra Pendragon, a deluded girl who thinks she's the daughter of Saber and Gilgamesh.
- Special mention goes to Orgy XIII, who's ranks include Troll Phelous D1, Douchy McNitpick, and Nazi Roxas, a Big Daddy, the and a grossly out of character version of Wolf O'Donell, none of whom have ever managed to cause anyone any kind of lasting harm whatsoever.
- Double Subverted with Darkdeath Evilman. He does manage to cause problems for people (offscreen), but ends up being defeated in a hilariously anticlimactic way.
- Also subverted with (The Dinosaur Comics version of The Devil), who kills Troll Phelous.
- Lampshaded the Obscure Reference:
- In one episode Karkat and company go to Trantor... and then realize that nobody can actually think of any good jokes about the Foundation series.
- Later, they end up witnessing a confrontation between "some obscure Doom Patrol villains".
- My Greatest Failure: Lant failed to save Alternia from the Vast Glub, and he failed to save the SBURB session he was inexplicably thrown into. Alfred, meanwhile, accidentally sabotaged his own session by abusing the laws of time travel until one of his doomed selves went god tier and became an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Good is Not Nice: Caius Ballad post Heel–Face Turn.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Minor character Lux Lexor once stole
FOURTY CAKES OF WEAPONS GRADE PLUTONIUM. - Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Call of Zombie Troll Phelous D1 Alter.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Karkat gives a very straigforward and logical explanation as to why he doesn't like Thirty Hs.
- Overly Long Name: Electra Rozelyn Sakura Belladonna Tokasha Emiya Brunestud Tono Nanaya Einzbern Pendragon.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The entirety of
Episode 26, which somehow includes Sho Minamimoto, Gaz, and the Great And Powerful Trixie as part of the Suicide Squad, as well as Gilgamesh, Phelous, Bizzaro Discord and Aradia reviewing Fifty Shades of Grey.- Subverted in Episode 27, where Phelous defeats Darkdeath Evilman offscreen by getting him addicted to DOTA 2.
- Raised by Humans: Opal, a Gardevior who was raised alongside Jade Edwards.
- Refuge in Audacity: Often subverted by Jake, who can get legitimate (or at least legitimate-sounding) analysis out of what he's reading.
- Repetitive Name: A one-off gag features Troll Phelous announcing that he's going to review Troll Troll 2.
- Serial Escalation: In Season 1, Caliborn was the closest thing there was to a villain, and he was pretty pathetic. Season 2 introduced Caius Ballad and his plan to destroy the timeline. Season 3 introduces the Prophet Gilesbie, who threatens to destroy reality itself.
- TV Genius: Jake. Knowledgeable on many subjects (or actually just knows that he can consult Google/Wikipedia/TV Tropes on any matter), but can't understand the difference between good and bad literature.
- Walking Spoiler: The author takes great pains to talk about Calliope and Caliborn in only the vaguest of terms, in order to avoid spoiling people who haven't yet read Homestuck. He also avoids mentioning exactly how Jake English is related to Homestuck, or the last names of any of the Dancestors.
- Villain Decay: Parodied with Caliborn, Lord English, and (in a one-off gag) Gendo Ikari. Played for Drama with Caius Ballad.
- Wham Episode: In Episode 11, Caius Ballad makes his debut. And then kills everyone.
- Then episode 22 ends with The Reveal that Caius Balad was an Unwitting Pawn who was made to forget about Yuel so that Gilesbie can posses her body. Caius is then about to make a Heel–Face Turn when Kotomine traps him in an "Anti Time Field" that will prevent them from interfering with Tara Gilesbie's plans.
- Episode 33 doesn't end too badly, but Electra remembers that she was sent back in time to stop The Great Disaster
- Episode 44 is written entirely in rhyme.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Season 2 is a pastiche of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Season 4 is meant to be a parody of Countdown to Final Crisis.
