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Feels pretty good to participate in my first Writeoff in a year — literally; the contest dates were 3/10/19 and 3/10/20 — and walk away with a story enjoyable enough for a medal. Congratulations also go out to FOME and Chris, and to everyone who poticipated!
Wotchmen: The RetrOtspective
So, a little general explanation for the overall craziness here. For about two years now I've been playing in a tabletop RPG campaign about the pan-dimensional adventures of a super-high-powered superhero team. It's an episodic, ensemble-cast game that's given me a number of vastly memorable characters, and it's really been getting me itching to write it down as original fiction. The setting of the game is one of those insane mash-up universes where every setting of every fictional story is itself, somewhere, real — yes, including MLP — and humanity (the United Earth Government) breached the dimensional gates, got magic and future tech and superpowers and the whole sausage, and catapulted themselves into a sudden stellar empire whose most competent heroes run around saving the universe from one Outside Context Problem after another. On one level it's blatant wish fulfillment fanfic with the power limiters removed, absolutely, but the game acknowledges the tropes it runs on and turns it into a living comic book that keeps me fascinated week after week.
So: This story is about 40% straight up stolen from the campaign, with the serial numbers heavily filed off.
Apocalyptica is actually one of my active PCs — she goes by "Allie" in the game, though I like >>Chris's "Polly" so damn much I might have to steal and retcon it — and in the game she indeed is the machine goddess of a new church of friendship and occasionally goes off-roster with her church to tackle friendship problems on her own. "Ot" was created from scratch for this story, but the power level of the campaign is so high that the PCs have definitely dealt with their share of eldritch beings threatening all of reality, including abstract memetic essences much like the story's. (Hell, they've got some on the team — one of my other characters, Talos, is a text elemental, aka a Platonic essence of communication.)
The self-aware "tier lists" is an in-universe thing since it's a universe of superheroes of widely varying capabilities; C- and B-tier heroes deal with local and regional problems, A-tier heroes deal with worldwide crises, and S-tier heroes likeCrashing Heavens The Rangers are the big guns called in when the biggest threats emerge. Mikhail is kind of a mash-up of two superheroes, Sergei and Ivan, on the team's roster (one NPC and one a friend's PC). Colt Peacemaker was made up for this, but the name "Colt Peacemaker" is actually swiped from the game as well; Allie — an avowed pacifist — went through some very difficult training where one of her mentors tried to force her to come to terms with her still-extant lethal capabilities, and she figured out how to unleash her dark side while selectively breaking physics so she could strike with overwhelming force as non-permanent "cartoon damage".
(Incidentally, now that I've written this story based on the campaign, there's been bleedthrough in both directions. Late last year, I developed Regina from Three-Card Shuffle into the newest superhero on my roster — setting the events of that story well in her past, and having her come on board as a high A-tier superhero turning to the S-tiers for help with a problem she couldn't solve alone. She reinvented herself in the process, and joined the team under a new identity — which has led to one of the game's current character-driven plotlines, an awkward love triangle between herself, her husband, and herself.)
The "metastable frontier" and the war beyond the limits of reality are made up for this story, because they were both simpler and less fanfic-ey than their inspiration. All of the B-tier heroes were made up on the spot; the ponies were inserted because … well, pony round. >>Bachiavellian isn't wrong to note that the ponies feel superfluous, because I kind of wedged them in; I tried to make them more relevant with some of the B plots like Church involvement and the love triangle, but just plum ran out of room.
As Chris guessed, I ran out of room in general. Beyond the plotlines I didn't get to fully develop — digging deeper into that love triangle, for one, along with Liam's history and his turning away from a superhero career — I had to leave out the entire epilogue scene. Apocalyptica leaves for the metastable frontier, and Techtician and Colt Peacemaker get a new teammate in their fight against crime — the new Liam, living with a supercomputer in his head that has helped him reshape his body into something much more formidable.
>>Baal Bunny
He's a prostitute. The scene where we meet him was him plying his trade, in an encounter gone horribly wrong.
>>Rao
Yeah, that was just a random piece of ascended background worldbuilding: this is set on a far distant world from Earth, out on the metastable frontier (hence ponies running around rubbing shoulders with the humans, and aliens nipping by for visits), and it's been long enough since settling the frontier that names saying "hey, I was born there actually" are a thing.
Tagging in everyone I haven't responded to yet, because I do have a question for the room:
>>FanOfMostEverything >>Meridian_Prime >>Comma Typer
I was trying to walk a fine line with the story — building up a very big universe from a cold start, but doing so without getting bogged down in exposition. From the general commentary, it seems like I overcorrected; pretty much everyone said that it took them time and/or re-reading to get oriented to what the heck was happening.
What were the setting details that clicked for you later on, or that you had to piece together on your own, which you wish you had known from the beginning? In other words, what would I need to work into the first scene or two (or an earlier prologue) in order to give readers a softer landing in the story?
What assumptions did you have to unmake that I might give readers a little better help in breaking up front?
I really wouldn't mind getting this cleaned up for FIMFiction publication, if only because I think I've got PLENTY of stories in this setting and this could serve as a useful bridge out from pony to original fiction. But if I do I'm going to want to provide a much cleaner start.
Thank you!
Wotchmen: The RetrOtspective
So, a little general explanation for the overall craziness here. For about two years now I've been playing in a tabletop RPG campaign about the pan-dimensional adventures of a super-high-powered superhero team. It's an episodic, ensemble-cast game that's given me a number of vastly memorable characters, and it's really been getting me itching to write it down as original fiction. The setting of the game is one of those insane mash-up universes where every setting of every fictional story is itself, somewhere, real — yes, including MLP — and humanity (the United Earth Government) breached the dimensional gates, got magic and future tech and superpowers and the whole sausage, and catapulted themselves into a sudden stellar empire whose most competent heroes run around saving the universe from one Outside Context Problem after another. On one level it's blatant wish fulfillment fanfic with the power limiters removed, absolutely, but the game acknowledges the tropes it runs on and turns it into a living comic book that keeps me fascinated week after week.
So: This story is about 40% straight up stolen from the campaign, with the serial numbers heavily filed off.
Apocalyptica is actually one of my active PCs — she goes by "Allie" in the game, though I like >>Chris's "Polly" so damn much I might have to steal and retcon it — and in the game she indeed is the machine goddess of a new church of friendship and occasionally goes off-roster with her church to tackle friendship problems on her own. "Ot" was created from scratch for this story, but the power level of the campaign is so high that the PCs have definitely dealt with their share of eldritch beings threatening all of reality, including abstract memetic essences much like the story's. (Hell, they've got some on the team — one of my other characters, Talos, is a text elemental, aka a Platonic essence of communication.)
The self-aware "tier lists" is an in-universe thing since it's a universe of superheroes of widely varying capabilities; C- and B-tier heroes deal with local and regional problems, A-tier heroes deal with worldwide crises, and S-tier heroes like
(Incidentally, now that I've written this story based on the campaign, there's been bleedthrough in both directions. Late last year, I developed Regina from Three-Card Shuffle into the newest superhero on my roster — setting the events of that story well in her past, and having her come on board as a high A-tier superhero turning to the S-tiers for help with a problem she couldn't solve alone. She reinvented herself in the process, and joined the team under a new identity — which has led to one of the game's current character-driven plotlines, an awkward love triangle between herself, her husband, and herself.)
The "metastable frontier" and the war beyond the limits of reality are made up for this story, because they were both simpler and less fanfic-ey than their inspiration. All of the B-tier heroes were made up on the spot; the ponies were inserted because … well, pony round. >>Bachiavellian isn't wrong to note that the ponies feel superfluous, because I kind of wedged them in; I tried to make them more relevant with some of the B plots like Church involvement and the love triangle, but just plum ran out of room.
As Chris guessed, I ran out of room in general. Beyond the plotlines I didn't get to fully develop — digging deeper into that love triangle, for one, along with Liam's history and his turning away from a superhero career — I had to leave out the entire epilogue scene. Apocalyptica leaves for the metastable frontier, and Techtician and Colt Peacemaker get a new teammate in their fight against crime — the new Liam, living with a supercomputer in his head that has helped him reshape his body into something much more formidable.
>>Baal Bunny
we have Liam, Thunderlane's ex and Braeburn's current flame, who could be a superhero but insists on doing something that gets him arrested instead? What that something is, though, I couldn't figure out.
He's a prostitute. The scene where we meet him was him plying his trade, in an encounter gone horribly wrong.
>>Rao
Also Liam's name is Earthson and that's pretty rad.
Yeah, that was just a random piece of ascended background worldbuilding: this is set on a far distant world from Earth, out on the metastable frontier (hence ponies running around rubbing shoulders with the humans, and aliens nipping by for visits), and it's been long enough since settling the frontier that names saying "hey, I was born there actually" are a thing.
Tagging in everyone I haven't responded to yet, because I do have a question for the room:
>>FanOfMostEverything >>Meridian_Prime >>Comma Typer
I was trying to walk a fine line with the story — building up a very big universe from a cold start, but doing so without getting bogged down in exposition. From the general commentary, it seems like I overcorrected; pretty much everyone said that it took them time and/or re-reading to get oriented to what the heck was happening.
What were the setting details that clicked for you later on, or that you had to piece together on your own, which you wish you had known from the beginning? In other words, what would I need to work into the first scene or two (or an earlier prologue) in order to give readers a softer landing in the story?
What assumptions did you have to unmake that I might give readers a little better help in breaking up front?
I really wouldn't mind getting this cleaned up for FIMFiction publication, if only because I think I've got PLENTY of stories in this setting and this could serve as a useful bridge out from pony to original fiction. But if I do I'm going to want to provide a much cleaner start.
Thank you!
For all that this took just a few minutes to put together, I really love the effect. It feels like such a great thematic encapsulation of the round -- not just in making art out of The Word, but also in the letsdothis.jpg shrug response, plowing forward despite the trollishness of the prompt. And the execution is so clean! The joke is immediately obvious, but no worse for it.
>>FanOfMostEverything
> What is Ot?
An indifferent shrug in an uncaring universe.
>>FanOfMostEverything
> What is Ot?
An indifferent shrug in an uncaring universe.
I like the general composition of the piece, though I'm not sure the details feel like they're all pulling in the same direction.
The chalkiness of the figures is perfect for the skeletons, but it makes Twilight's figure feel off in a way I'm finding hard to articulate. The shadow she casts is super stark and dynamic, but then it contrasts with the soft gradient of the sunbeams in a way that makes them seem … off? Googling pictures of sunbeams, there's sort of a combination of hard and soft edges which create an interplay between light and shadow rather than just colors; I think something like that would have really enhanced the effect of Twilight's stark shadow rather than creating a sort of three-focused piece with black and blue and yellow.
I wonder if it would have worked better having a more defined, sharp-edged Twilight facing the light and then losing definition as she fades into the shadow. And while the skeletons are a pretty visually compelling component, perhaps darkening them some so that there was more a sense of subtle ghosts in the shadows.
Regardless, a thought-provoking piece. Thank you for arting, *cough* unknown mystery artist!
The chalkiness of the figures is perfect for the skeletons, but it makes Twilight's figure feel off in a way I'm finding hard to articulate. The shadow she casts is super stark and dynamic, but then it contrasts with the soft gradient of the sunbeams in a way that makes them seem … off? Googling pictures of sunbeams, there's sort of a combination of hard and soft edges which create an interplay between light and shadow rather than just colors; I think something like that would have really enhanced the effect of Twilight's stark shadow rather than creating a sort of three-focused piece with black and blue and yellow.
I wonder if it would have worked better having a more defined, sharp-edged Twilight facing the light and then losing definition as she fades into the shadow. And while the skeletons are a pretty visually compelling component, perhaps darkening them some so that there was more a sense of subtle ghosts in the shadows.
Regardless, a thought-provoking piece. Thank you for arting, *cough* unknown mystery artist!
Well, I haven't had a lot of time this week to do reviews (hopefully tomorrow), but now that we're closing in on the end of the round and everyone's presumably read everything, I can at least bring back another Writeoff tradition —
Mash-ups: Original Theme Edition!
Belshazzar and the Cross: The angry mob drags Twilight Sparkle out of her castle and burns her at the stake. They realize a little bit too late that the "O" actually represented a disguised nirik.
Daring Do and the Lizard of Ot: Last Frontier asks her mother where she came from. Daring Do and Caballeron look at each other. He tugs at his collar. "Well, sweetie," Daring starts, "when two ponies who love each other very much defeat an ancient draconic guardian and find their Ot…"
Obsolete Testament: Star Swirl asks Celestia how to cope with returning to a culture that's entirely unchanged from when he left Equestria. She drags him to an alternate universe and puts him to work fixing the sex-and-murder monkeys.
Well It Starts As Overtime: "You just HAD to call this a peaceful night," White Lightning shouts as their cop car approaches the scene of a drug-fueled, cat-murdering, filly-kidnapping, mayor-stabbing rampage.
Wotchbugs: After realizing that Ot is entirely, 100% the fault of humanity, Equestria and Apocalyptica's war fleet team up to teach them a rainbow-colored explosive lesson about the dangers of invoking memes.
BONUS THREEFER
The Circle and the Lizard and the Greatest Adventure: Three words, Sparity fans. "Lamia-dragon hatchlings."
Mash-ups: Original Theme Edition!
Belshazzar and the Cross: The angry mob drags Twilight Sparkle out of her castle and burns her at the stake. They realize a little bit too late that the "O" actually represented a disguised nirik.
Daring Do and the Lizard of Ot: Last Frontier asks her mother where she came from. Daring Do and Caballeron look at each other. He tugs at his collar. "Well, sweetie," Daring starts, "when two ponies who love each other very much defeat an ancient draconic guardian and find their Ot…"
Obsolete Testament: Star Swirl asks Celestia how to cope with returning to a culture that's entirely unchanged from when he left Equestria. She drags him to an alternate universe and puts him to work fixing the sex-and-murder monkeys.
Well It Starts As Overtime: "You just HAD to call this a peaceful night," White Lightning shouts as their cop car approaches the scene of a drug-fueled, cat-murdering, filly-kidnapping, mayor-stabbing rampage.
Wotchbugs: After realizing that Ot is entirely, 100% the fault of humanity, Equestria and Apocalyptica's war fleet team up to teach them a rainbow-colored explosive lesson about the dangers of invoking memes.
BONUS THREEFER
The Circle and the Lizard and the Greatest Adventure: Three words, Sparity fans. "Lamia-dragon hatchlings."
>>Baal Bunny
Alas, the “no explicit sequels” rule is still in effect.
Which just means *someone else* is gonna have to write the Pony Island sequel while I try to sneak something else in for this historic occasion.
Alas, the “no explicit sequels” rule is still in effect.
Which just means *someone else* is gonna have to write the Pony Island sequel while I try to sneak something else in for this historic occasion.
Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it.
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
Dang it. :( I tried to push myself into getting an entry written, I really did. But that was back on Friday when I had a day off, and as soon as I got sucked back into my work schedule, my focus just scattered.
Good luck to those of you still working on your entry!
Good luck to those of you still working on your entry!
>>Pascoite
Yep. Structure's called a "pantoum".
I've never dared to try one. It's hard as heck. This holds together really impressively, especially in the few lines which shift meaning by altering punctuation.
Yep. Structure's called a "pantoum".
I've never dared to try one. It's hard as heck. This holds together really impressively, especially in the few lines which shift meaning by altering punctuation.
Well, this is a fine way to discover that I didn't have my notification preferences set properly. :P
Anyway, thanks to >>CoffeeMinion's gentle prod, I've gotten the FIMFiction folder for this round created: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200535/folder/68985/2019-09-uncharted-territory
Go ahead and add your stories there once you get them published to FIMFic!
Anyway, thanks to >>CoffeeMinion's gentle prod, I've gotten the FIMFiction folder for this round created: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200535/folder/68985/2019-09-uncharted-territory
Go ahead and add your stories there once you get them published to FIMFic!
Folder for this round has been created in our FIMFiction group:
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200535/folder/68640/2019-08-ship-it
Standard disclaimer: As an anti-spam measure it requires group permissions of "Contributor" to post stories to the folder. Everyone who has joined the FIMFic group and has written at least one Writeoff story ever is eligible for Contributor status. If you don't have it, PM/DM/otherwise bug me and I'll get you fixed up.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200535/folder/68640/2019-08-ship-it
Standard disclaimer: As an anti-spam measure it requires group permissions of "Contributor" to post stories to the folder. Everyone who has joined the FIMFic group and has written at least one Writeoff story ever is eligible for Contributor status. If you don't have it, PM/DM/otherwise bug me and I'll get you fixed up.
>>Miller Minus
I note that you did not specify bird species. You specified "any bird".
So I would become the Road Runner from the Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Functional immortality (as a cartoon), super speed, the power to warp reality as long as it's funny, and the world's unluckiest super genius as my only rival.
Then I just have to find Pinkie Pie and team up with her to break the fourth wall and get out of 2-d existence, and the world is mine for the taking. Meep meep.
I note that you did not specify bird species. You specified "any bird".
So I would become the Road Runner from the Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Functional immortality (as a cartoon), super speed, the power to warp reality as long as it's funny, and the world's unluckiest super genius as my only rival.
Then I just have to find Pinkie Pie and team up with her to break the fourth wall and get out of 2-d existence, and the world is mine for the taking. Meep meep.
Thanks to a reminder from Miller Minus, this round's folder is now created over at FIMFic, so you can add it if you expand it to 1000 words and publish there.
As usual, if you don't have permission to add your stories to the folder, poke me here or at FIMFic or wherever you can find me — to prevent spam, it's locked to "Contributor" status, which is given out to all authors who have participated in at least one Writeoff.
As usual, if you don't have permission to add your stories to the folder, poke me here or at FIMFic or wherever you can find me — to prevent spam, it's locked to "Contributor" status, which is given out to all authors who have participated in at least one Writeoff.
Thanks to a reminder from Miller Minus, this round's folder is now created over at FIMFic. As usual, if you don't have permission to add your stories to the folder, poke me here or at FIMFic or wherever you can find me — to prevent spam, it's locked to "Contributor" status, which is given out to all authors who have participated in at least one Writeoff.
Just want to mention that -- if I was taking time to enter the Writeoffs this weekend instead of racing to write new Time Enough For Love scenes in time to get it into my Bronycon book -- I would totally be using this art as inspiration for some ridiculous piece about an AU where people can project their body parts into Equestria.
Heck, if I thought I could do it justice in 750 words I might even cheat and sneak an entry in, but I just don't think I can make an idea come together satisfyingly in the ... hour I have before the coffeeshop closes.
Heck, if I thought I could do it justice in 750 words I might even cheat and sneak an entry in, but I just don't think I can make an idea come together satisfyingly in the ... hour I have before the coffeeshop closes.
Just a quick note to let authors know that I've created the "On The Wings of a Dream" folder over in the Writeoff Association FIMFiction group. (As well as the folder for last month's pony minific competition, if anyone expanded one of those fics out to a longer standalone story.)
Obligatory reminder: DO NOT POST YOUR FIC THERE UNTIL THE JUDGING IS OVER! I'd hate for you to break anonymity by jumping the gun.
The Writeoff group's folders are locked to those with "Contributor" status -- however, everyone who has ever participated in a Writeoff before qualifies for the upgrade. If you're not a "Contributor" to the Writeoff FIMFiction group, reply to me here with your FIMFic username, or PM me on FIMFic, and I'll fix that for you.
Obligatory reminder: DO NOT POST YOUR FIC THERE UNTIL THE JUDGING IS OVER! I'd hate for you to break anonymity by jumping the gun.
The Writeoff group's folders are locked to those with "Contributor" status -- however, everyone who has ever participated in a Writeoff before qualifies for the upgrade. If you're not a "Contributor" to the Writeoff FIMFiction group, reply to me here with your FIMFic username, or PM me on FIMFic, and I'll fix that for you.
Geez, you would not believe how hard it was to google that this style of line drawing (where you have a black canvas and scrape the ink away to get your white areas) is called "scratchboard art". I remember doing it during art class in high school. Of course, given that I went to a high school with art classes, I'm probably dating myself.
It's a tough medium. You have to think about your art in reverse. You're not adding shadows, you're adding highlights. And once a line goes down, you pretty much are stuck with it unless you repaint your board and let it dry again.
That said, the overall effect is a little uneven. I can't quite shake the odd sensation of the foreground Charlie's crossed eyes. If it's meant to represent him he's staring at the spider, the perspective lines would put that close enough to his face that the thing's larger-than-tarantula sized. The shading on Daniel's face also feels off (unless it's meant to be a horseshoe/trucker moustache). Scratchboard is unforgiving. :(
But what's going on in the photo is immediately recognizable, which is the first goal of representational art. So points for success!
Thanks for contributing, artist! And that's art reviews done.
It's a tough medium. You have to think about your art in reverse. You're not adding shadows, you're adding highlights. And once a line goes down, you pretty much are stuck with it unless you repaint your board and let it dry again.
That said, the overall effect is a little uneven. I can't quite shake the odd sensation of the foreground Charlie's crossed eyes. If it's meant to represent him he's staring at the spider, the perspective lines would put that close enough to his face that the thing's larger-than-tarantula sized. The shading on Daniel's face also feels off (unless it's meant to be a horseshoe/trucker moustache). Scratchboard is unforgiving. :(
But what's going on in the photo is immediately recognizable, which is the first goal of representational art. So points for success!
Thanks for contributing, artist! And that's art reviews done.
I can just see Ewan hauling out the magical-world equivalent of a projector and giving a presentation after he and Rowan escape the village. This would be the first slide.
My reaction is pretty much what >>Pascoite said, though. Thanks for contributing, artist!
My reaction is pretty much what >>Pascoite said, though. Thanks for contributing, artist!
Paging WIP