Log Fic
One style of Mockumentary, where it's a recognizable type of computer document—IRC chat log, forum posts, guestbook, Facebook posts, blog entries, email, etc. It's almost always a Fanfic or history fic, mainly because it's an "easy" form, and it's almost always at least part-comedy, mainly because it would be hard to take this seriously anyway.
It could also be an Apocalyptic Log. May be integrated with a Fourth Wall Mail Slot. Character Blog is a subtrope usually done as part of a larger work. Compare Gag Dub.
Examples of Log Fic include:
- The Avengers Shouldn't Text, which is a Slice of Life log of texts between the The Avengers set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- There was a brief sequence in Zebra Girl following Sam in an IM conversation.
- "Lonebot" and "Curlehbrace" reenact Cave Story through the Twitter feeds of the player character and Curly Brace.
- Fake Theme Park
- This summary of Watchmen in the form of a Facebook feed.
- The notorious NSFW Harry Potter fanfic "Naked Quidditch Match" is composed almost exclusively of emails.
- Gunnerkrigg Court's side story City Face has metafiction Bonus Material -- comments where City Face himself, other birds and City Fairies laud or abuse each other, internet guestbook style.
- The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog have this as a framing device.
- In a Crowning Moment of Awesome, a British design studio recreated the film Home Alone entirely through tweets, including a Twitter page for every character who had a part, in realtime over Christmas 2009. They plan on doing Home Alone 2 over Christmas 2010. They don't plan on doing Home Alone 3 or 4..."ever...as those movies suck. That is all."
- Scourge chat logs series.
>8< spider pride"Wyrms before worms!" - On CollegeHumor:
- Cracked.com
- A Series of Emails From Cyberdyne's New Tech Guy pokes fun at terminally unsafe behaviour of certain characters in the Terminator movies.
- A borderline example in 6 Movie Plots That Could Have Been Solved In Minutes -- a blitz Fix Fic for Twilight Saga: New Moon (It Makes Fun Of Context).
- Dorkly.com has the whole "Gamebook" column (Artificial Stupidity is featured more often than not):
- "The Hardest Week of My Life" was a story arc from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe that focused on Diamond. It was told in the form of a series of first-person diary entries retelling the events of the titular "hardest week" of her life.
- This strip of Quarter Life Comics.
- The short story Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel is formatted as a Wiki discussion page.
- The online novel Ultimate Dream is written in the form of a Character Blog, with comments on each entry by the character's friends. The story progresses in the form of blog posts by the Genre Savvy Deadpan Snarker narrator, as she and her friends play a Role-Playing Game and get sucked into the gameworld.
- The number of Facebook fics in the Glee fandom is insane. Some of them are really good. Others... not so much.
- The book Ophelia Joined the Group "Maidens Who Don't Float": Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook by Sarah Schmelling is a collection of several classic lit titles as told through Facebook updates.
- Jesus on ThyFace: Social Networking for a Modern Messiah does something similar for the New Testament.
- Since Homestuck is made largely of chatlogs, there are tons of fanfics for it that are based around just one long chatlog.
- There's also the fic "Self-Imposed Challenge", written as a series of forum posts.
- iCarly has a reasonable number of this. The general idea is often some kind of 'gossip blog' run by Wendy, with the characters posting messages on the site. Wendy will write an article claiming xyz have happened, and the characters come in so that Hilarity Ensues.
- Korrabook has the cast of The Legend of Korra post on a Facebook-esque social site about the events that happen in the series.
- The Angry Staff Officer blog has some In-Universe e-mails, as well as briefings, debriefings, etc. here's Star Wars list.
- Such as: Galactic Email: Sustainment Issues for Director Krennic’s Shuttle (as the name hints, it's about logistics and military culture of the Empire), A Day in the Life of a Rebel Alliance Logistician (supply and sheer madness in the Rebels' camp) and Imperial Maintenance Memo: Circle X’d AT-ATs.
- "Some Uncomfortable Questions", in the Mega Crossover fanfic My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character, is the log of a chat between characters who happen to be most of the Self Insert characters.