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Canterlot, 7,439 A.C. A divided and forlorn city. In the smoking ruins left by years of internecine warfare, a few desperate ponies try to survive…
Hunkering down in the gloom under the porch, you kick the corpse of your hapless opponent. His body rolls over, exposing a tiny box hidden within his belly fur. You draw your flick knife, cut the skin around the capsule, and shove it into your pouch. Mission accomplished, now you must go back to deliver your payload.
And that’s not gonna be easy.
Cautiously, you tiptoe to the entrance and shoot a glance left and right. Amid the rundown buildings, the thoroughfare seems deserted, but your view is blocked by several heaps of rubble. Besides, this district is infested with Nightmare Moon’s henchponies and the ubiquitous silence is no comforting omen.
You know that use of offensive magic is prohibited under the truce covenant and that every spell you might cast will immediately be detected and acted on, but this is no time for caution. Diplomats will settle this later, if need be.
You grasp the slingshot in your pouch and load it with an explosive crystal. Then you conjure a holographic image, that you send away along the street.
It’s not even five metres away when a blast of energy hits it square in the flank, piercing its insubstantial body. Quick! Your gaze zeros in on the beam’s source, a first floor window of an opposite building. You draw a bead with your slingshot and shoot. The crystal darts straight into the opening and detonates. You hear a muffled cry as flames erupt from the window, but it lasts only an instant. Soon silence returns, as menacing as before.
One less fucker in Equestria.
You can’t afford the luxury of using another decoy, so you emerge from the porch and, hugging the wall, crawl up to the nearest rubble heap.
There you pause for a few seconds, looking round for signs of other snipers. All seems quiet. Your next hop is that crumbled house, which will offer you a safe passage beneath its ruined storeys to the only drive that leads to the border of Nightmare Moon’s sector.
And beyond, through a breach in the fence, back to the three allied princesses’ sectors, and freedom.
Go! You spring from your hideout like a jack-in-the-box and rush ten, twenty, thirty metres, before hearing a shout. You pounce forwards, just as a beam of energy blasts the wall behind you. You roll ahead as you hit the ground, and finish your tumbling under the cover of a few piled-up boulders. Panting, disregarding the pain in your seared backlegs, you crouch down and grasp your flick knife again, waiting for your enemy to show up.
A couple of minutes elapses and nothing happens. This doesn’t bode well. But forget about that asshole, you’re racing against time. Standing up, you trudge amid unidentified debris, until you reach the edge of that boulevard, with liberty at its end. It’s not even two hundred metres afar, and, despite the murk, you can make out the sign posted on the other side, which proudly boasts “Welcome to Princess Twilight’s zone”.
Time for you to play your last trump card. You pull a metallic phial from your pouch and drink it up. Picking up what’s left of a mirror you look at yourself and grunt in satisfaction: you’re invisible. That will not protect you from detection spells or infrared sensing, but you won’t be as conspicuous.
You come into the open. The road, you know, is studded with numerous traps which will react to your presence, invisible or not. Fortunately, you’ve rote memorised their location and you should be able to ride that last hurdle out.
You look around, concentrate to take your bearings. You’ve pulled it off once, there’s no reason you can’t do it again.
You begin to walk forward.
One. Two… Twenty. Twenty-seven steps. Stop. Flame trap ahead. Sidestep it. One. Two. You jump and freeze…
Phew. You exhale. One skirted round.
You feel sweat trickling down your forehead as you proceed, veering left and right along the walls of this invisible maze.
Only fifty metres left. Two last traps to go.
… Thirty-two. You hesitate. Is it thirty-three or thirty-four? You can’t remember. One more step. What now? Your memory is fuzzy.
You dare another step.
A barricade of glaring red rays springs up before your eyes, as maniacal laughter thunders. You spin round and —
Hunkering down in the gloom under the porch, you kick the corpse of your hapless opponent. His body rolls over, exposing a tiny box hidden within his belly fur. You draw your flick knife, cut the skin around the capsule, and shove it into your pouch. Mission accomplished, now you must go back to deliver your payload.
And that’s not gonna be easy.
Cautiously, you tiptoe to the entrance and shoot a glance left and right. Amid the rundown buildings, the thoroughfare seems deserted, but your view is blocked by several heaps of rubble. Besides, this district is infested with Nightmare Moon’s henchponies and the ubiquitous silence is no comforting omen.
You know that use of offensive magic is prohibited under the truce covenant and that every spell you might cast will immediately be detected and acted on, but this is no time for caution. Diplomats will settle this later, if need be.
You grasp the slingshot in your pouch and load it with an explosive crystal. Then you conjure a holographic image, that you send away along the street.
It’s not even five metres away when a blast of energy hits it square in the flank, piercing its insubstantial body. Quick! Your gaze zeros in on the beam’s source, a first floor window of an opposite building. You draw a bead with your slingshot and shoot. The crystal darts straight into the opening and detonates. You hear a muffled cry as flames erupt from the window, but it lasts only an instant. Soon silence returns, as menacing as before.
One less fucker in Equestria.
You can’t afford the luxury of using another decoy, so you emerge from the porch and, hugging the wall, crawl up to the nearest rubble heap.
There you pause for a few seconds, looking round for signs of other snipers. All seems quiet. Your next hop is that crumbled house, which will offer you a safe passage beneath its ruined storeys to the only drive that leads to the border of Nightmare Moon’s sector.
And beyond, through a breach in the fence, back to the three allied princesses’ sectors, and freedom.
Go! You spring from your hideout like a jack-in-the-box and rush ten, twenty, thirty metres, before hearing a shout. You pounce forwards, just as a beam of energy blasts the wall behind you. You roll ahead as you hit the ground, and finish your tumbling under the cover of a few piled-up boulders. Panting, disregarding the pain in your seared backlegs, you crouch down and grasp your flick knife again, waiting for your enemy to show up.
A couple of minutes elapses and nothing happens. This doesn’t bode well. But forget about that asshole, you’re racing against time. Standing up, you trudge amid unidentified debris, until you reach the edge of that boulevard, with liberty at its end. It’s not even two hundred metres afar, and, despite the murk, you can make out the sign posted on the other side, which proudly boasts “Welcome to Princess Twilight’s zone”.
Time for you to play your last trump card. You pull a metallic phial from your pouch and drink it up. Picking up what’s left of a mirror you look at yourself and grunt in satisfaction: you’re invisible. That will not protect you from detection spells or infrared sensing, but you won’t be as conspicuous.
You come into the open. The road, you know, is studded with numerous traps which will react to your presence, invisible or not. Fortunately, you’ve rote memorised their location and you should be able to ride that last hurdle out.
You look around, concentrate to take your bearings. You’ve pulled it off once, there’s no reason you can’t do it again.
You begin to walk forward.
One. Two… Twenty. Twenty-seven steps. Stop. Flame trap ahead. Sidestep it. One. Two. You jump and freeze…
Phew. You exhale. One skirted round.
You feel sweat trickling down your forehead as you proceed, veering left and right along the walls of this invisible maze.
Only fifty metres left. Two last traps to go.
… Thirty-two. You hesitate. Is it thirty-three or thirty-four? You can’t remember. One more step. What now? Your memory is fuzzy.
You dare another step.
A barricade of glaring red rays springs up before your eyes, as maniacal laughter thunders. You spin round and —
Aw man, I was hoping this would end on a joke. Instead, it just ends with the mocking little NEXT link down there that won't lead to the actual end of this story.
A few years ago, there was a Fimfiction contest called "The Most Dangerous Game," with the challenge of taking a concept that was really hard to pull off, and turning it into a good story. The most difficult of the prescribed concepts was second-person writing. This is because for it to work, there must be a reason. A couple of people managed to pull that off; for example, the story was told in the form of a letter or an accusation. But I think this story would be better suited for first- or third-person.
The other big issue is that a story with this much worldbuilding and violent action wants to be longer. I can practically watch this one strain against the world count limit. I've been there: You think you can get it in under the limit, but then you run out of time and space, and have to hand in what you've got.
On the plus side, this does show much promise, since it is certainly not boring, and fast-moving, evocative description such as this is important for this sort of story. Keep working on your skills, Grasshopper! I will be interested to see future improvements.
The other big issue is that a story with this much worldbuilding and violent action wants to be longer. I can practically watch this one strain against the world count limit. I've been there: You think you can get it in under the limit, but then you run out of time and space, and have to hand in what you've got.
On the plus side, this does show much promise, since it is certainly not boring, and fast-moving, evocative description such as this is important for this sort of story. Keep working on your skills, Grasshopper! I will be interested to see future improvements.
I was kinda bored. There were no characters, not even the 2nd-person "role" I'm filling. SPark compared it to a videogame; to me it was like watching a videogame that I'm not allowed to play.
The first two paragraphs caught my attention for the hook and worldbuilding elements, but soon after that I felt too detached to share in the tension.
The first two paragraphs caught my attention for the hook and worldbuilding elements, but soon after that I felt too detached to share in the tension.
Genre: First (second?)-Person Shooter
Thoughts: I'm far from a 2nd person enthusiast, though I've blundered into a few of them of late, and I think I can begin to see the appeal. Honestly this story was effective at selling me on the potential offered by the format, because it felt like a tense and gripping session of playing a first-person shooter. Granted, it's hard to translate the experience of one medium to another; I've got a story in the works (not in this Writeoff) where two of the climactic moments come from the characters playing music together, and the best I can do is try to paint around the edges of the experience and hope the audience will fill in the rest themselves. IMO this story attempts something similar and succeeds for the most part.
Ah, but the but: the swearing was jarring, post-apoc setting or not. The ending was also dissatisfying. By the end I had come to care enough about "me" and wonder enough about the setting that I wanted to see more revelations about it and get a clear sense of "my" fate. By having it stop where it did, I feel like I'm denied additional meaning on either front. Now maybe "I" die at the end, and that's the point of it... but without more clues or payoff for what it all meant, I'm left cold.
Still, I think I could really get into this with a bit of finishing work.
Tier: Almost There
Thoughts: I'm far from a 2nd person enthusiast, though I've blundered into a few of them of late, and I think I can begin to see the appeal. Honestly this story was effective at selling me on the potential offered by the format, because it felt like a tense and gripping session of playing a first-person shooter. Granted, it's hard to translate the experience of one medium to another; I've got a story in the works (not in this Writeoff) where two of the climactic moments come from the characters playing music together, and the best I can do is try to paint around the edges of the experience and hope the audience will fill in the rest themselves. IMO this story attempts something similar and succeeds for the most part.
Ah, but the but: the swearing was jarring, post-apoc setting or not. The ending was also dissatisfying. By the end I had come to care enough about "me" and wonder enough about the setting that I wanted to see more revelations about it and get a clear sense of "my" fate. By having it stop where it did, I feel like I'm denied additional meaning on either front. Now maybe "I" die at the end, and that's the point of it... but without more clues or payoff for what it all meant, I'm left cold.
Still, I think I could really get into this with a bit of finishing work.
Tier: Almost There
Agh, 2nd person, my foe. I kid. On that front it's fine. It doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the personage, but hey. Also unsure about the exclamations, but I don't read enough 2nd to know how okay those are. They kinda jarred me a bit, but we're already in a voice I don't do much with, so...? Eh. Check other 2nd person works (or people who use it more).
Otherwise... it's solid action work, but, unfortunately, that's kind of all it is. Tension is fine, but the payoff for that tension is nothing. No characters, setting is pretty minimal, etc.
Oh. Opening line could probably be cut, or at least better connected to the narrative. I dunno. As is, it's kinda off-putting to me personally? I know we're in minific mode, I know word count is tough, but you can do it! Work it in there! It doesn't have to be subtle, but don't italics it out on a side for no reason! I mean, I guess you could be going with a TV narrator open, but it's a bit too short to really achieve that feeling accurately, I feel?
Otherwise... it's solid action work, but, unfortunately, that's kind of all it is. Tension is fine, but the payoff for that tension is nothing. No characters, setting is pretty minimal, etc.
Oh. Opening line could probably be cut, or at least better connected to the narrative. I dunno. As is, it's kinda off-putting to me personally? I know we're in minific mode, I know word count is tough, but you can do it! Work it in there! It doesn't have to be subtle, but don't italics it out on a side for no reason! I mean, I guess you could be going with a TV narrator open, but it's a bit too short to really achieve that feeling accurately, I feel?
So, I'm not a fan of second person, as it's so rarely done for good reason. Most of the time, it's just stunt-writing, and this seems to fall into that trap. There is no story, no interest, no anything here. We simply have a play-by-play of an action scene, sans context, and sans (most) emotion. Yes, the character shows pain, but... it's an Arnold grunt, or a Sylvester grimace at best. No real depth.
What I hoped was that there was going to be a payoff at the end. A lot of the dialog sounded like "Shia LaBeouf", which does the second person thing in a way nothing else has ever matched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI I wanted this to turn into that, to morph into the ridiculous, but it didn't.
What I hoped was that there was going to be a payoff at the end. A lot of the dialog sounded like "Shia LaBeouf", which does the second person thing in a way nothing else has ever matched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI I wanted this to turn into that, to morph into the ridiculous, but it didn't.
As has been said, there’s no apparent need for the second-person perspective. It doesn’t do nearly as much as you hope it does to increase immersion; all it does it remind the reader that no, they aren’t actually working their way through the Canterlot slightly-less-militarized zone.
This idea is really not made for minifics. You’ve sacrificed motivation and characterization for raw action, tension, and an all-too-literal example of stopping rather than ending. A lot happens, but we have no context for why or knowledge of the stakes. This guy might as well be carrying Marcellus Wallace’s suitcase for all we know.
The good news is that this is ripe soil for an expansion where you’ll have the room to properly set the scene. I look forward to it.
This idea is really not made for minifics. You’ve sacrificed motivation and characterization for raw action, tension, and an all-too-literal example of stopping rather than ending. A lot happens, but we have no context for why or knowledge of the stakes. This guy might as well be carrying Marcellus Wallace’s suitcase for all we know.
The good news is that this is ripe soil for an expansion where you’ll have the room to properly set the scene. I look forward to it.
Grats and good luck to all finalists!
Thanks to all for your reviews. ❤️
This was of course experimental, it was also the first time I wrote a second-person fic.
The story was inspired by this scene from Octopussy.
I’m a bit puzzled no one got the Berlin post WW2 reference here…
That’s all!
See you next round folks.
Thanks to all for your reviews. ❤️
This was of course experimental, it was also the first time I wrote a second-person fic.
The story was inspired by this scene from Octopussy.
I’m a bit puzzled no one got the Berlin post WW2 reference here…
That’s all!
See you next round folks.