"I should start with a prompt drop," you say.

I shrug. "It's your funeral."

"No, no," you say, cracking your knuckles and sitting down at your keyboard. "You don't understand. Cream, as they say, isn't the only thing that floats to the top."

I roll my eyes and return to my video game. "That line ought to tell you everything you need to know about your so-called plan."

"It's going to be a thing of beauty." You cackle. "Every possible thing I could do to alienate the audience, I'll do. Second-person viewpoint? Check. Putting thoughts in the narrator's mind that the reader would never think? Check."

"Kindly tell me again," I say, rejoining the match in progress, "what's the closest that a meta story has ever gotten to a Writeoff medal?"

"Fourth-wall breaking, check. Meta, check. Obviously." You pause. "Should I add explaining the obvious to the list? Yes, I probably should."

"WALLHAX!" I suddenly scream at the screen, flinging the controller across the room with my alicorn magic as my midnight-blue avatar spirals to the ground amid a glowing red defeat message. I note the username of my killer. "xXx_ButtonMash_xXx" is SO going to get a spanking once I issue a royal requisition to the game admins for his IP address.

You tick off points with one eagle talon onto the stubby crocodile claws of your other hand. "Use of much-loathed fanon characters. Times-two combo chain, actually. Gratuitous insertion of irrelevant material to inject pony content. Incorrect description of a well-known canon character. Ooh! Ending the story with a feghoot. And while I'm at it, why don't I make the title a chain of the most rage-inducing memes possible?" You pause and type in the title box for a bit, and then your face splits into a wide grin. "[smcaps][color=red]Yes! And textual gimmicks![/color][/smcaps]"

I turn off my monitor and let my forehead sink to my computer desk. "Kindly do not make me explain why this is a bad idea, because if you do not stop I am going to trot over there and pull the power cord on your computer before you can click 'Submit'."

[right]"Joke's on you," you say, fiddling with textual gimmicks some more. "I'm on a laptop."[/right]

I fire up my horn and wrestle your computer away, hitting "Select All" and then stabbing the "Delete" button, which I notice a moment too late that your finger-snap has instead turned into "Automatically Transcribe This For Me". I growl, take a deep breath, and stare into your eyes as these words spool onto the screen. "Discord. I will [i]not[/i] stand for this mockery of Writeoff traditions."

"Mockery?" You place a hand to your chest in mock affront, and then your grin returns. "[i]Au contraire, mon cherry[/i]." I spit out a Maraschino and glare daggers as you coil around me. "You see, the most beautiful thing about this wreck of a story … is that it's [i]completely serious[/i]. It's [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrossesTheLineTwice]Crossing The Line Twice[/url], plus or minus a trope. Underneath the deliberate provocation, it's an actual story with solid prompt use, stated goals which match its authorial characterization, and justification for all the annoyances."

I raise one eyebrow. "Completely serious? Do you mean to tell me that this self-described pile of steaming meta garbage is [i]not[/i] a trollfic?"

You giggle. "Oh, dear me, no. But this [i]is[/i] a genuine and legitimate entry — the trolling comes [i]when they decide how to score it[/i]. It's a direct [i]challenge[/i] to every single reader that way. Do they evaluate the story based on the way it executes on its self-stated goals, or on the knee-jerk reaction of their personal biases? And how do they justify the latter, if the story succeeds on its own terms?" Your giggle effortlessly morphs into a menacing laugh. "Maybe I can even get every single reader to N/A this story, and then we can create an edge case to troll [i]Roger[/i]! Just imagine the headache of an entry that is literally unscorable!"

"Good luck with that, Discord." A smile spreads across my muzzle. "Because it seems to me you're forgetting one important thing."

You lift an eyebrow in one claw. "That being?"

"Your story necessarily identifies its own author," I say, glancing at the clock. "And there's no way you can rewrite it to maintain anonymity in the next … mmm. Ninety seconds."

You hold up one claw, mouth open, and pause.

"Oh," you say. "Fewmets."










P.S.: a feghoot