Contest results · 8:57am Sep 19th, 2013
Once upon a time, Past Me sat at my computer, staring at FIMFiction and saying: "Gosh. What I wouldn't give to read more Skywriter stories."
That's when Future Me appeared in a giant cloud of sulphurous smoke. "You sound like a soul in need."
Past Me jumped up. "Holy moley! What are you doing here, Future Me?"
"I guess you didn't know it, but I'm a fiddle player too," Future Me said. "And if you'd care to take a dare … wait. This is Tuesday, right?"
"Thursday."
"Oh, sorry. Anyway, for the low, low price of $9.00 and your immortal soul, I can get you a new Skywriter fanfic."
Past Me thought about that for a moment. "Well, by definition you're going to end up with my soul whether I take your bargain or not, so, sold."
Future Me squinted, having left my glasses in the present. "What do you mean, I get your soul anyway? Aren't you Ghost of Heraclitus?"
"Alas," Past Me said, taking pity on Future Me and handing him my glasses, "I don't rock the footnotes nearly as well." [1]
"Be that as it may, a deal is a deal. Here, spend the $9.00 over at Damn Interesting, and …"
* * *
"Nice scene transition," Present Me said. "Where'd you get the asterisks?"
"I stole them from Past Me," Future Me said, setting down my glasses.
"I'm sure that's a decision that will never come back to haunt us. Hey, look at that! Skywriter fanfic!"
And lo, over in comments of my Musical Mayhem contest sat a freshly crafted Skywriter story, which not only contained the words "chautauqua," "heyrube," and "Grand-Guignol," but also a gratuitous camelid pun.
Future Me stared open-mouthed. "Wow," he admitted. "I didn't actually expect that to work."
"This only cost me $9?! His story was so awesome it scared away all the other contestants!"
Future Me shrugged. "Maybe everyone was burnt out after submitting a dozen lightbulb punchlines for the joke contest."
"… … … Ow. I see what you did there."
"You're just upset that it'll take you a week to come up with that pun. So, how'd the judging go?"
"You're Future Me. You should know."
"Selective memory loss caused by pun-based frontal lobe damage."
"Oh, alright." Present Me shuffled through his notes. "Well, after anonymizing the punchlines and submitting them to a grand total of seven independent judges … we seem to have run into a problem. Namely, after totaling up the scores, two punchlines tied for first place."
"How's that a problem?"
"Well, the winner was supposed to have their punchline used in Princess Luna Picks Up Hitchhikers, and get their OC mentioned in a cameo appearance in the story, so —"
"Don't worry, my good me!" Future Me disappeared briefly, then returned, wearing a white lab coat and steampunk goggles.
"… What did you do."
"Nothing," Future Me said. Present Me stared. Future Me squirmed. "Okay. Hypothetically, it's possible I just rewrote history so as to make one contestant submit both ideas."
"You realize, of course, that deciding how to split the prize in half would have been much simpler."
"In hindsight, yes."
Present Me sighed and facepalmed.
"In my defense," Future Me said, "I did at least have the foresight to make the winners both Skywriter."
And that's the story of how Skywriter won at absolutely everything ever, and how Horizon got stuck in a time loop that has also produced 17,000 words this month of Eakin-approved fanfic. Look for that to start being posted later this month, shortly after the long-lost-to-editing-paralysis Social Lubricant, which is actually no joke for srs right on the cusp of being postable.
--
[1] "More's the pity. I was hoping we'd get awesome footnotes."
"Well … I can write you a recursive footnote. Would that help?"
"I think that's orthogonal to 'awesome.'"[1]
I am pleased to award this the coveted[1] & exclusive[2] Ghost Of Heraclitus Seal Of Footnote Humor Approval to this exchange. Especially "that's orthogonal to 'awesome.'" That's just gold that is.
And Skywriter always wins everything ever. He's Skywriter. The only way in which it is fair for him to enter a fic/ficlet contest is if he were handicapped in some way. Like if he were forced not to use the letter 'e.'
Or any other vowels.
Or a keyboard.
And he'd still win.
[1] Technically this is a lie.
[2] Technically, this isn't. Morally, however...
Because I am me, I instantly feel the need to apologize for this. You may safely disregard this impulse of mine.
Which lightbulb joke was it? Or shall we wait for the part to come out?
Looking forward to the Hard Reset side story!
1359959
I'm about to write an entry to a future Horizon contest.
There! Done! It's sure to win.
1359959 A proposal without that fifth short word 'twixt 'd' and 'f'? How difficult would such victory show without allowing it? I'll try.
Tada! I win.
-G
1359997
> Which lightbulb joke was it?
As it turns out — of the two punchline co-winners, one of them was "eligible" (i.e., squares with story-canon) and one of them was "ineligible" (fits the contest rules as written, but would not make sense within the specific context of a joke learned and told before Luna's return). If they'd been different authors I would have had to do something like divide the prize or write two cameos or something, but as it is, choosing which punchline to place in the story is thus made simple.
In an artificial attempt to build suspense[1] I will withhold the Actual Winner That Will Be Used, but here's the second winner that won't:
Also, incidentally, the runner-up was Benman's "Just one, but it takes her 28 days." The "Moonies can't get any more screwed" one which we all thought was so beautiful (which is still my personal favorite) ended up with half the points of first place.
--
[1] I'm getting good at that, apparently. Or maybe I'm just lazy.
1359959
Those restrictions would still leave Skywriter the option of handwritten Hebraic, which I think would slow him down only slightly.
Also, you're still around, yay! I note on your user page you had some scary health moments and I hope that you're past those. Good to hear from you!
1360500
Hey, that's pretty good! You know, that gives me an idea for a contest, in which —
1359999
— Hey now. My contest was going to require everyone to answer with words via a text-based website and how did you even get interpretive dance to transmit electronically and why is it so stars-damned compelling
… Screw it. Contest preemptively decided. Skywriter, you win in advance. I'll tell Past Me to PayPal you a punch in the face, and we'll call it good.
1360781, 1359959
Holy crud, Ghost! I had no idea you had a health scare. Sorry to hear that.
1360500
It astounds yours truly, with what amount of skill you did approach a difficulty such as this. Terrific job!
1360781 1361295
Awww. Thank you, the both of you. It's comforting--and astounding--to know that people care.
I thought of writing a post explaining things, but I didn't want to worry everyone. But, briefly: I was told I was going to go blind. This distressed me to a considerable degree. But, as it happens, after some spectacularly unpleasant testing it turns out I'm not. The experience left me quite shook up, though, not to mention a bit on the bankrupt side (arranging top flight ophthalmological examinations turns out to be expensive). Still, I persevere.
1360781
Hooray! I'll just hire a moving van to stop by your house so that you can load it up with all the potential prizes I may ever win from you in the future. Why wait, after all?
1361339
Well, yes, we would have been worried, and that is because IT WAS A WORRISOME THING. Glad it turned out for the best, all questions of ultimately-unnecessary testing aside.