• Member Since 18th Oct, 2014
  • offline last seen Sunday

Trick Question


Being against evil doesn't make you good.

More Blog Posts610

  • 36 weeks
    Coming Soon, Really

    I've been a bit under the weather since Trotcon, but feeling better now.

    This weekend I need to work on putting together some poni stuff for my niece (she's up here for her birthday), and my inability to do basic things makes that a bit difficult. So I may be delayed a few days on the Trotcon retro and the other long post I still really really want to share with y'all.

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  • 36 weeks
    Twilight's Enigmatic Clarification (AI ≠ LLM GAI)

    To head off any possible confusion, I've added a clarification to TEEE's story page and a note at the top of the chapter explaining that TEEE was not written using LLM generative AI (the story actually predates this technology by several years).

    [Adult story embed hidden]

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  • 37 weeks
    Trotcon '23 Author Party! (Saturday)

    • Where: the Fairfield Inn just north of Dayton convention center
    • Suite: 324
    • When: Saturday Jul 8 '23
    • Time: 9:30pm to 1am
    • How: You may need to text me at 513-290-6836 to get into the hotel. If not, just head on up.
    • What: Trotcon Fimfiction author/fan party! :pinkiehappy:

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  • 38 weeks
    I will be at Trotcon. Still alive.

    I remain alive, and as of June 13th am now the number of symmetries in a cube.

    I will be at Trotcon.

    Please contact me if you're there! (Or even if not, that's okay too.) :pinkiesad2:

    I might do an author party. I'll announce it with another post. Signal boost would be useful.

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  • 43 weeks
    I am still alive and also at AnthrOhio

    Sorry for disappearing. Ironically the thing I wanna talk about is the thing that keeps me from being here at FF or getting anything done. :facehoof:

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Nov
20th
2022

Weekly contests on hiatus. What's next? · 7:23pm Nov 20th, 2022

Several people have enjoyed the weekly contests, but I've been concerned about them being engaging enough for the general public. As only a hoofful of my readers have participated, I was relying on feedback from the form I put up, and I only received five responses (six if you count an offline response I received separately).

One of them was very negative and referred to the weekly events as a "blatant ego stroke", which is actually good feedback because I wanted to know if people were annoyed. I've always been concerned about this being a possibility, so I'd like to clear the air.

The reason I held the contests wasn't to toot my own horn, despite the response. I held them because it's very difficult for me to engage with people online right now due to the recent quick progression of my disability, and it was—for lack of a better way of putting it—something that I was still able to do. Specifically, it was something I could do weekly that related to what I write, since my writing progress has slowed to a crawl.

That said, it's clear to me that the contests are both too spammy and appear too self-indulgent. The contest became more of an insider-thing than an engaging-the-public thing, and I can understand how people might be put off by it. So for the time being, I'm suspending it entirely.

So... what comes next, then? :trixieshiftright:

First off, Trick Points will still be honored. I might also give them out again or donate them for legitimate contests, such as if I host or co-host a writing competition, or if I want to contribute to the pot for a competition I like. This will be rare, however, because people aren't spending them yet and if too many are floating out there I wouldn't be able to deliver project requests on a realistic timetable. I might at some point require them to be spent within a certain number of months, but will announce it here if that is the case.

(I was kind of hoping somepony would take a gamble and purchase the mystery Community Service option at some point, but I may end up doing it anyway for free. However, it's not a priority at the moment. It would be something I could contribute apart from the contests on a weekly basis.)

I think I'm making some progress with my life that will speed up my writing. Mostly this comes from learning to manage my posture so I'm not too fatigued, but not also choking to death with allergies being an issue. So hopefully this will help me provide content that followers can use in the near future.

I might decide to use the blog to post things unrelated to writing, but of interest to most of my readers. Haven't decided here, but I'd like to make a post at least once a week with something interesting in it.

That's about it for future plans, though I really do have a large number of projects nearing completion. I just can't seem to focus on one at a time.


Anyway, for the 50th and final (for now) contest, Light Striker was the only entrant, so they win with a score of +12 since all the named stories qualified. They didn't guess the secret one but I don't think anypony is likely to guess it. EDIT: See comments below for info on the max score (+25).

The final tally, until I spread some more points around:

THE LEADERBOARD (Unspent/Total Trick Points)

mishun: 17/17 TP :rainbowdetermined2:
Fylifa: 11/11 TP
Light Striker: 9/9 TP
BezierBallad: 6/6 TP
FanOfMostEverything: 5/5 TP
Fillyfoolish: 2/2 TP
hawthornbunny: 1/1 TP

To those who enjoyed the competitions over the past year, I appreciate your involvement and I'm sorry to end them. But don't worry, there are new things just around the corner. :pinkiesmile:

Comments ( 6 )

I didn't respond to the poll since, by the time I saw it, I also saw that this post was already up, but just to let you know, I wasn't annoyed by them, I just didn't know the answers.

Sorry it didn't work out.

I'm glad things in your life seem to be improving!

Good luck, in general!

This makes sense! I leant toward keeping them (mostly stated for anyone else reading this comment), but if they're not working like you hoped and/or are putting people off then falling back seems like a reasonable outcome. (And re point exchange, hopefully my brain will let up enough that I can thing a continued thing at you within the next month or so :derpyderp1:)

I held them because it's very difficult for me to engage with people online right now due to the recent quick progression of my disability, and it was—for lack of a better way of putting it—something that I was still able to do. Specifically, it was something I could do weekly that related to what I write, since my writing progress has slowed to a crawl.

I have some deep and weirdly specific personal sympathy for this (and I wonder whether that indirectly led me to engage more, lately). My (mostly theoretical) “main” career has been completely broken for a while, substantially due to having barely any executive function, and I've been really tempted to take up a Scheduled Thing I Could Do that relates loosely to it and simultaneously is less ‘real’ and would have a potential exhibition audience, to work around the disconnect between “unreliable, anxiety-drenched, out of touch” and “retaining some ongoing connection to the thing that other people can see”. (Though in that case I'm half-tempted to lean into a certain form of egotistical presentation, partly as a stage persona.)

Mostly this comes from learning to manage my posture so I'm not too fatigued, but not also choking to death with allergies being an issue.

There's so many points of life where it turns out that managing one thing excruciatingly well might unjam things but it takes forever to start getting it right or sometimes figure out which one it even is. Frustrating. I hope it works. :unsuresweetie:

Oh! Um. What was the maximum score for #50? You did mention that that would be revealed afterwards, after all… :twilightsheepish:

... too spammy...

Once a week? Seriously? :rainbowhuh:

5699080
The maximum score was +25. The regular-type ones you missed were Twilight's Enigmatic Erotica Engine (obvious but extremely silly); Diane, Private Eye (one mane character so far is described as not transgender but definitely crosses gender typing, while another character is explicitly transgender); and A Cry for Help (obvious but silly combination of specism and sexism).

I probably wouldn't have taken off points for anypony guessing Shoot for the Moon, even though it isn't the secret one.

5699158
Too spammy for the majority of my followers who don't care about the contests, at least.

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