Oppa Writeoff style!

*horse riding dance*

Newts

Prompt submitted!

Time to procrastinate!

It’s been this way from the start.
It’s like they’re always trying to tear us apart,
But we will stand strong, stand true,
And everybody’s gonna watch what we do.
And they’ll be awestruck, saying “Aw, shucks!
They either got real good or they got real good luck.”

And I’d be lying if I said that I could take any more,
'Cuz I’ve been on my own, trying like never before,
And I was lying on the couch and there’s this knock on the door,
And it’s like—

All my friends,
Woah, come right in.
Woah, all my friends!
We can take it all back again!
Woah, put your hands on in
And lemme hear you say
Oooooooooh yeah!
Lemme hear you say yeah!

Another day, another chance.
We got our card and we’re going to the dance.
We’re gonna stay strong, hold true,
And everybody’s gonna watch what we do.
And they’ll be awestruck, saying, “Aw, shucks!
They either got real good or they got real good luck.”

And I’d be lying if I said that we could take any more,
'Cuz we’re about to light a fire like never before,
And if you’re lying on the couch and there’s a knock on the door,
And it’s like—

All my friends,
Woah, come right in.
Woah, all my friends!
We can take it all back again!
Woah, put your hands on in
And lemme hear you say
Oooooooooh yeah!
Lemme hear you say yeah!
Woo!

All my friends,
Woah, come right in.
Woah, all my friends!
We can take it all back again!
Woah, put your hands on in
And lemme hear you say
Oooooooooh yeah!
Lemme hear you say yeah!

We’ll always be young at heart,
And nothing’s ever gonna tear us apart because we
“Stand strong, stand true!”
And everybody’s gonna watch what we do.
And they’ll be awestruck, saying, “Aw, shucks!
They either got real good or you know what!”

Let's see if I can make this happen.

I predict my prompt will win.

Well, this weekend I'll be at a furry convention. But usually I go to furry conventions to drink and dance, and I'll be down half of that since my patellar tendonitis is flaring up. :(

So if the prompt hands me an awesome gift-wrapped idea, I might break my no-more-minifics thing and wander in anyway.

Honestly, though, I'm kind of feeling like I've lost the idea to understand what people enjoy reading. I just released former silver medalist "For The Moon, The Night" over on FIMFic (heavily edited/expanded as Queen of Clubs), and it barely even touched Popular Stories and got only about 10% as many views as people on my follower list; and it has been accumulating the same sort of mixed critical reception there as it did in comments here. "Paint it Black", meanwhile, was literally my worst finish in my four-year Writeoff career (except for the in-joke fic I directly asked people to bottom-slate, which was also within the last few months), and I released it basically unedited and it stayed in the Featurebox for two days.

Normally I could chalk that up as differences between the Writeoff audience and FIMFic audience, but historically I've both agreed with the consensus here and been able to predict it with a modest degree of accuracy. QOC's medal and PIB's basement finish both shocked me.

I don't know. I'm just shaken. :(

Well, I certainly look forward to this.

Wait... this will be three things I gotta write for... well, I did want to get around to writing.

I finally started making good progress on writing outside of these since the last time I entered, and was hoping to have a finished version of Discord Libs up on fimfic, or at least ready for prereading. But then I got sick and lost all momentum. Oh well, hoping to use this writeoff to get back on the pony. Hopefully by the anniversary of the writeoff it was in it'll be ready, which is in... one month. Holy. I thought I was at 9 months, not 11.

Here's to hoping I have time and internet enough to join...

I had to trek to a public library to submit my prompt and make this comment. :P

Here's to gin, and the writers it's in.
Here's to the whiskey that makes our minds frisky.
Everybody should believe in something.
I believe I'll have another drink.

>>horizon
You’ve still got it, man. ❤️ I think there’s been some turnover/churn in the reader-base in both places, which makes it less predictable.

As for me, I’m gunning to take back that long-lost #9 spot in the pony rankings. N-not that I care, b...baka. :-p

>>georg
*raises pre-emptive cider*

>>horizon
O tempora, o mores!

Vagaries of fortune and human nature’s volatility
Against thee wrought their evil conspiracy.

>>horizon
You can't predict the Box, so you shouldn't let it dictate your writing.

Damn, I'm so late for my shitty nonsense-songish #1post.

At least, I'm not late for submitting a song prompt.

Hey look. It's that group I wrote for a few times and pretend to still write for. Let's hope my propensity for procrastinating doesn't screw me over again.

>>Trick_Question
You just jinxed it!

Once Upon a Burning Sky, Cross My Heart and Hope to Fly, Young Mare Came In from Hunting, Faint and Weary Of Light and Shadow.

“I’m Not Going to Miss You.” Tips and Tricks, The Price of Magic. The concept of sawing Florida off and pushing it out to sea–The Missing Piece. Dangerous Magic, Fill in the Blank.

“Is it because I’m—” Me Among the Mighty, Just For Fun, But you touch one butt, and suddenly it’s a big deal! Everyone Poops–All The King’s Horses! Ass Capades! Princesses’ Clusterfuck. Diplomatic Disaster, Light Treason, Rules of Engagement… “—Rumbly in My Tumbly?”

“End the Suffering.” The Reign of Mortals. Day By Day In a fictional world, What Could Possibly Go Worng? How Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Aren’t Real?

“I’ve Got Your Back.” It’s The Journey, Not The Destination Over the Moon. Lie Me a River.

The Kiss, Lamp Twice as Bright Among the Clouds. Horses’ Shadows Touch and Go. Resolutions, In Other Words.

DON’T FORGET ME

>>horizon
Also: look at the shit in the Box right now. Seriously.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
These don't always do it for me, but this one's amazing!

>>Trick_Question
Noooooooooo! :raritydespair:

Mare, I did much worse than expected. Only 8 votes. :derpytongue2:

Well, this prompt isn't doing anything for me, but we'll see how the day goes. However, I enjoyed reviewing during the last minific round, so see you all in the comments even if I don't submit an actual entry!

I'm blanking a bit on this prompt too, and I'm pretty busy getting ready to move on to campus on the 16th so I don't foresee much participation from me in this write-off :(

>>Trick_Question
I'll challenge you to that. ;)

Given how I have a lot of personal writing projects that I want to work on and the fact that I won a silver medal in the last round, I'm going to sit this one out.

However, I'll be sure to check out and vote on the ones the rest of you write.

>>dragon discord
Congrats!

Your prompt has inspired me, too. :pinkiehappy:

Hey guys! IMO this prompt is a great opportunity to advance the concept of being a bit lenient with stories that don't line up with it in a super-obvious way. That is unless we all want to read stories about:

1) Ponies/Technicolor Humans Lying
2) Rivers
3) Ponies/Technicolor Humans Lying While Traversing Rivers

I know this isn't rocket science and most people are probably cool with this anyway, but I feel like it's worth putting out there for discussion, as I could see this prompt being somewhat restrictive otherwise.

>>CoffeeMinion
It's possible to have 50 completely different and original stories all about lying while traversing rivers. I don't think we need to worry.

>>Trick_Question
You’re right, of course; I should’ve seen that coming. :-p

I'm out; way too much stuff to do today. Good luck, everypony!

I am doing the influenza thing, yet still managed to get the story thing out.

Crap. I've got a perfect story idea for this prompt. And I've written it TWICE, in different formats.. and NEITHER of them is fitting the word limit, or really gelling together perfectly. And I'm running out of time. :/

Whew, I'm shocked I got that idea past the minimum word count. Maybe it's alright?

I just hope I didn't chew through too much of my cell data editing. And of course there'll be at least one error I totally missed despite that. :P

Good luck to everyone still writing!

Arg, I just don’t have it this time. Good luck everypony!

>>CoffeeMinion

Or, just hear me out, this is a chance to vigorously censure stories that don't strictly adhere to a narrow, literal interpretation of the prompt.

I did it! \o/

Time for punishment critical feedback.

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the following news:

While I did submit a story, any and all references to lesbian mud wrestling within said story were removed at the advice of my pre-reader.

>>Posh ...which I really was looking forward to, because you seldom see lesbian mud engaging in physical activity such as that. :)

Anybody else having Copy/Paste issues out of Gdocs where the Writeoff.me site is taking out all of the line spacing?

>>georg
Yeah, I've had that issue too.

>>georg
I am not, but I am using a plugin called BBcode Export which works fairly well.

>>georg Have you tried copypasta-ing it into an unpublished FiMfic doc, and then porting that here? That's how I do.

Am I dead yet?

I'll probably regret it, but here we go again

Boom! Got a story in!

Watch out. I'm gunning for Gold this time, ladies and gentlemen!

I have to pull out of this one. My idea could fit into a minific, but not without feeling rushed.

Best of luck to you all!

Morning edit is done. I am officially in.

Woke up at 4 am yesterday with a fever which got better and worse depending on the hour. So despite getting an idea for a story, I couldn't have gotten any writing done. I wish you all the best, and see you next round.

Darn, up too late to make a few last fiddly adjustments I thought of overnight. Oh well.

Also, only 27 fics for a MLP minific round? What happened?

Time to vote! Let's speed-review this thing.

Wow, low turnout this time.

Roger, weird issue I've been having for a couple months now. When I log in, the browser just churns and churns and doesn't do anything, but if I click on any links, it does take me there and shows me as logged in. Or, understandably, if I hit the login button again to see if it just needs to try the process again, it takes me to an error message saying I'm already logged in. This only started one or two write-offs ago. I'm using Chrome on Windows. I don't think it happens on my Linux machine at work running Firefox.

Any of you folks planning to go to Bronycon this year? I'm curious to see who is, and it's relevant to my interests.

>>Pascoite
Stop using Chrome. Chrome is evil.

I’m not going to BC, but I’m certain you don’t care! ;)

>>Pascoite
I just tested the site on my Chrome (v63.0.3239.132, Win7 Ultimate) and everything seems to be working fine. Maybe an addon or plugin interfering with the site script? Or perhaps it's in need of updating? Typing chrome://chrome in the address bar will take you right to the update button.

I use the Chrome OS and browser at work -_- Eight hundred odd machines, all Chrome all the time.

I am making every effort to attend BronyCon this year. Saving up for my not-getting-paid Summers is always rough even without travel, but progress so far is favorable.

>>Pascoite
I would love to, though I'm thinking 2019 might be more feasible than 2018.

Meanwhile, you (and others!) should check out Ciderfest!! It's probably an order of magnitude smaller than BronyCon but it's tons of fun!

That intensely frustrating moment when you realize the Writeoff you intended to join passed by while you were blinking.

>>Rao
So it is. I whitelisted this site on adblock, and it works now. Strange that it only started recently causing problems.

>>CoffeeMinion
BC is the only con I attend because I can get in free for doing a panel and it's close enough to commute. Basically, it's not worth it to me to spend much money to go to a con. Three days of gas money and meals is fine, but a hotel room or long-distance travel isn't.

>>Pascoite
Well, I guess that's a difference then; my family and I love doing the con thing. :-) Maybe we'd do it differently for cons that came near us, but we're (sometimes figuratively / sometimes literally) stuck in the middle of a huge frickin' corn field.

Time to bring back an old tradition:

Writeoff Mash-Ups: Preliminary Edition

the rhyme was almost certainly unintentional

I Did Not Have Sexual Relations in the Candelight: The CMCs spy on Applejack's and Rarity's romantic, candlelit dinner, and accidentally see Applejack's dick.

Of course, this being Equestria, none of them really care about that. The point is, they were right about the two of them doing "book things." They promptly break in to celebrate, causing quite a stir among Ponyville's more well-to-do.

Staying on Romance: All Chrysalis wanted was to give Celestia some tea and confess her feelings for her, and she ended up negotiating the timestream and trying to prevent her people from becoming sparkly, neon imitations of themselves. Again! Thrill to the twists and turns in this cosmic, romantic comedy of errors.

First Lies: "Now, I'm sure all y'all have heard 'bout them disappearances 'round Manehattan, rumors 'bout some cannibal lurin' unsuspectin' ponies inna her basement an' cookin' 'em up right 'n tasty-like. Well, I'm here t'tell y'all, today, that they ain't jus' rumors. I'm Applejack, Equestrian cannibal, and this here's mah confession."

Her relatives laughed riotously at this latest lie, as Applejack, smirking deviously, dug around in her bag for another slice of pegasus pizza.

The Missing Piece... of Glass: Celestia listens to her niece and nephew try to shift the blame for yet another cake-related mishap onto one another, and she's honestly just... she's just so tired of it all...

Fishy Fish! Looking up from her line, Cheerilee saw Applejack seated on the opposite end of the riverbank, a fishing pole between her hooves.

Applejack met her eyes, waved, and reached into her bag for a piece of pizza. "Hungry?"

A cold feeling settled over Cheerilee. "Snails, I think we're done fishing for the day."

>>Posh
I've come here to defend my stance on pizza in bags.

Applejack shall not be mocked for such a want in her life. Leftover pizza shall, and will always, be shoved into bags of her liking. Cannibal or not, please respect her decision to do so.

Thank you.

Writeoff Mash-Ups: Finals Edition

Sugardelta: "I just don't know what to do with him, Princess Cadance; I talk, and all he does is make that, that... that face at me! With the teeth! You know the one, right? Ugh, I thought he was going to be exotic, and thrilling, but we have nothing in common and -- Cadance, dear, how much crystal vodka have you consumed today?"

"Not... enough..."

The Dog Ate My Gameday: Discord's latest plan to lure his chums together for a night of Ogres and Oubliettes backfires when Thorax, the lynchpin of it all, steals and consumes everypony's lovingly crafted character sheets.

The River of Hatred Gazes Back: In desperation over her wings, Twilight decides to follow in Lilith's hoofsteps, ending her life by disseminating herself in the River of Dreams and making everypony in Equestria feel very passive-aggressive and depressed. Scootaloo intervenes before she can end it all, however, her angst inspiring Twilight to just hand the damn things over to her. Problem solved!

Fear of Dam You: Twilight, consummate politician, finally finds herself at a loss when somepony asks how she plans to evict Chrysalis, who is draped languorously atop the hydroelectric dam and refuses to leave.

The Price She Changed: "Mom, how come you and Dad don't look each other in the eye anymore?"

"Well, I can't speak for him, exactly. But as for myself, I sacrificed all the love I felt for him in order to make you such a sweetheart."

"Mom, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

"Don't think too hard about it. Now, I think I hear Rarity coming, so I'm gonna camp out in my shoe closet. If she asks, tell her I, uh. Died."

"But you're immortal."

"Well, actually... mm, no, I don't think we're ready for that talk yet."

>>Posh

You're the best :D

Oops. 😬 I completely forgot to create the FIMFiction folder for this round's competition at the end of the round. Thanks to a prod from Mr. Demon Bunny, I've rectified that.

If you've expanded your story to 1000 words and published it to FIMFiction, go ahead and add it to the group folder!

(If not, feel free to get on the "make minifics 500-1000 words" bandwagon so that we can publish more of these stories once we're done with them here.)

And please, always feel free to poke me here, on Discord, or on FIMFiction PM if you want to add a story to the group folders and I've forgotten to do my job. :derpyderp2:

>>horizon
(I am down for bandwagoning on this 500-1000 thing but am uncertain how best to make it happen)

EDIT: I have posted a request to the FimFiction group.