"Dream A Little Dream Of Me": The Pony Island contest! · 1:33am Sep 14th, 2015
Feeling up for some mental exercise? Here's something to tickle both sides of your brain — the logical and the creative. Better yet, there's cash and prizes involved!
"Dream A Little Dream Of Me"
A contest for The Last Dreams of Pony Island
Now that the "Distant Shores" Writeoff round is over, I've just posted the (somewhat unusual) story that I entered there. The Last Dreams of Pony Island is an anthology examining the fall of an old Equestrian colony, from the point of view of its residents ... or, rather, the dreams that each of those residents have, about the topics that weigh most on their mind.
The 16 dreams in the collection are puzzle pieces that assemble into a greater tragedy — involving secrets, heartbreak, deceit, and possibly even the murder of an old merchant nopony seemed to like.
But there's one individual we haven't heard from: the Nightmare — which is to say, the Lunar secret agent trained in dream infiltration — who's sifting through all of Myinnkyun's dreams.
Your job is to write that individual's tale, and explain — as best you can — the colony's mysteries.
Let's start with the incentives:
Prizes
First place winner will receive $25.00 USD, and their submission will be added (with credit) to The Last Dreams Of Pony Island as an official, canon chapter in the story!
Then, first, second, and third place (in that order) will get to choose one prize each from the following list:
• $10.00 USD
• $10.00 USD
• $5.00 USD
• I will read an MLP fanfic of your choice (up to 50,000 words, or the first 50k of a longer work), and review and recommend it to my 700+ followers
• I will offer a private Writeoff-style constructive critique for up to 10,000 words of story, with in-depth feedback on both good and bad, with a focus on larger-scale issues like structure, theme, and tone
• I will write a blog post on a writing-craft topic or MLP-related topic of your choice
• I will write a minific (up to 750 words) based on a prompt of your choice
How to Enter
One entry per person; if you send me a second I'll replace your earlier entry. You can write up to 1,173 words. (If I could write Melt with that wordcount, you can explain Myinnkyun's problems.)
Format it the same way as Pony Island's chapters:
Name of the Nightmare you're writing about
The rest of your entry (told from their perspective)
Send your entry in via FIMFiction PM; via e-mail to horizon <at> tomorrowlands.org; or via the dictation of Luna, Princess of the Night. (Note: I can't accept responsibility for mis-sent dreams. However, if you actually do manage to get your entry read aloud into my dreams, you win by default.)
Submission deadline is when I wake up on Thursday, Sept. 24 Friday, Sept. 25 , at approximately 9 a.m. Pacific time (-0800).
Judging
As I said, this contest is designed to engage both halves of your brain, and it will be judged 50% in each category.
Left Brain: Deduction
The core of your submission should be to explain Peridot's death — but if there are any other mysteries or discrepancies illuminated by the townsfolk's dreams, highlight and reconcile those as well. "Side" mysteries will definitely be taken into account!
Judging here is explicitly based on agreement with the facts revealed in the story, and with common sense — there are a few pieces of evidence I deliberately left ambiguous, to force me to evaluate entries on their merits instead of how well you read my mind! If you present a detailed and logical summary accounting for all the evidence, then even if you accuse someone of murder who I wouldn't have accused, you get top marks. I want the best answer, not the "right" one.
Explain your reasoning. Provide motives. Invoke circumstantial evidence when necessary. It's better for you to point out a discrepancy, even if you can't explain it, than to ignore it.
(There is a "right" answer, but I'm quite prepared to discover that an entrant's answer is more right. As they say, history is written by the winners.)
Right Brain: Creativity
This half is harder to pin down; creativity is like the classic summation of obscenity, "I know it when I see it." But the core idea here is how cool your submission is to read.
Submitting something totally unexpected can check that box, but luscious prose can too. So can matching the voice and tone of the original story. So can writing that springs profound questions. I want to see something that completes this story in a way that makes me wish I'd written it.
As such, I want to remove as many restrictions on content as possible. Write prose, or poetry, or any combination of the two. Make your entry the Nightmare's own dream, or their report to their supervisor, or a conversation after the city's fall, or a conversation before the city's fall ... or anything that makes sense within the premise! Just make certain that you identify who the dream-explorer is, how/why they're involved (especially if they're not a Myinnkyun resident), and that reading your submission explains what happened to Myinnkyun and to Peridot (since that's the other half of the judging).
Getting Started
Since you've made it this far, here's a little starting hint ...
There was surprisingly little discussion of the story in the Writeoff Association thread, but there are two clues worth gleaning from the discussion there. I'm just going to point you to my two posts on the matter: (#800, #987). (You can read through the whole thread if you want to get further reactions to both my story and the other entrants, but the two linked posts are the only ones that should be relevant to your writing here.)
Questions?
Ask 'em in comments. Otherwise, good luck, and I look forward to reading your submissions! 
My major questions are as follows:
1. Why are you so damn smart and stuff?
2. How can I possibly enter this contest and retain any sense of dignity, considering that any "theories" I might put forth would be instantly shredded by logical points that any person with normal cognitive powers would instantly see (and laugh at me for missing)?
Oh, one more question:
If we want to air a bunch of half-baked theories in hopes that expressing them in community will help solidify the lurking sense of unease about this story and bring it closer to some form of closure, would you prefer we speculate wildly here, or in the other thread?
You damned Writeoff authors keep coming up with increasingly crazy and convoluted ways to force me to read fiction.
(thanks)
3391435
1) Aw, you're making me blush! But I'm really not coming up with anything that, say, a hivemind-linked army of drones wouldn't be able to.
2a) The deduction stuff is only 50% of the judging, and as I noted, I do give partial credit for merely pointing out contradictions, even if you don't have a solid theory to explain them. So you've got a better shot than you think! Put together something top-notch in the presentation, and you're already starting out a little bit ahead of someone who perfectly understands the mystery but has a hard time writing stories.
2b) The post above links to some hints that you can use as starting points. I think if you just write down a list of what people disagree on, and what disagreements can't be explained away by simple prejudice, you'll get a lot further than you expect.
3) Hm. Probably post them to the story itself, because people who want those questions answered but don't care about the contest will likely read that thread but not this one.
EDIT: Basic questions/speculation can go to the story thread. If you're not entering and want to see if your deductions on Peridot's death are right, PM me and I'll give you a ballpark idea of your correctness level.
Is she the only trader on island ?
This is such a cool idea for a contest.
...this is gonna be like the Hard Reset 2 Easter egg all over again isn't it? I'm gonna spend years of my life trying to figure it out and it's gonna be something stupid I was thinking too hard about.
Meh. It's too sweet to pass up on. Count me in!
3391634
I actually need to answer that question twice, because it touches on a point I should have made about the answer to the mystery.
1) As I mentioned, there is a "right" answer in my head to the mystery of Peridot's death, but what I want from you is the best answer which fits all the facts of the story.
The "right" answer only involves characters who are named in the story. You are certainly allowed to add characters for the "best" answer -- but if you do, you'd better have a really good reason to involve them, or you'll suffer in the judging.
(I don't have a "right" answer as to whether the Nightmare was named in the story or not.)
That being said:
2) Cabotage's chapter answers your question about whether Peridot is the island's only trader.
For the record: First entry is in!
Now up to three entries already!
They have three different narrators, and two different choices for the individual who was the primary cause of Peridot's death.
Augh! I have officially spent far too much time on this investigation.
It's just so much fun though!
3393503
Then it's not "too much" time, now, is it?
3393527
Does five hours or so just spent on reading, deduction, and research count as too much?
Oh well I got some loaded questions now buddy ^^
3393896 so is there an approximate number of guards on the island ? Maybe a ratio of guards to ponies f you can't approximate ?
And are these the only ponies left on the island and let me be clear, are all the ponies mentioned in the story the ONLY ponies left there ? (This is relevant to one of my mysteries I think could be a possible theory) could it be a multipony conspiracy ? Also are any of these ponies (to keep it vague) related say sister and sister or mother and daughter in this story ? What does the Minotaur have in this ? Who is he cursing ? Palei Hantu, whom does he refer to ? (Sorry for a span of questions
3393912
I think the point of the contest is to actually answer these questions yourself.
And as explicitly stated in the rules, some things are left vague on purpose because the idea is for us to interpret it one way or another. And I assure you that everything that you asked can be answered by the text or from close examination of the text and a small bit of assumption (which, as Horizon also said, is necessary and a focus of the competition).
I'm fairly sure you can write it one way or the other and come up with something that makes sense. The more you can make sense out of it, the better, and the better it can go into your scoring.
I'm also sure that for however Horizon managed to get a Burmese to English dictionary that has romanization, barring the fact that Horizon himself speaks Burmese, we also don't need to understand the words of the Minotaur to be able to come to a conclusion. After all, it would be unfair to expect us to have a world skill that a character has, one that is necessary to solve the mystery, and vice versa -- the Nightmare could never possibly be able to get his hands on a Mooken-to-Equestrian dictionary in such short time and be able to translate the words in that span.
Right, Horizon?
RIGHT, HORIZON?
Although I will throw you a bone.
There most definitely IS a parent-child relationship in there somewhere.
3393242
I'm so glad there's a variety of Secret Agent choices. I'm going to love seeing all the different spins.
(mine is best of course)
that is why
I wrote it that way
help I am stuck writing free verse
which is basically just how I usually write except for with bullcrap pretentious line breaks instead of commas
and inconsistent capitalization
how do I shot poetry
3394647 Well.... I've got a decent breakdown for just about everything that happens, I think. It was a fun logic puzzle, and I'm interested in seeing what other people come up with.
Unfortunately, my chances of turning this into something readable is nearly zilch.
3394659
I'm the opposite. I know I don't have it all because I can feel the one loose end flapping around and I can't for the life of me figure out where it tucks in. So I justified it in character voice and am hoping to woo our host with words instead.
3394672
Let me guess. You don't know who ate the last slice of cheesecake, right?
3394745
I CAN'T TELL IF IT WAS THE ALIENS OR THE BAT PONIES
3394790
Let me tell you what I figured out.
According to chapter 19: Smearstain, he claims that he saw lights in the sky on the night before Peridot died. From this, we can tell that chapter 38: Henry Rollins' account that the skies were clear is a lie, and that he was actually not at the 3rd guard post on the night in question, but rather exposes chapter 1934: Monkey Barrel's mystery guest where they played Parcheesi all night.
Therefore, the answer is clear, only chapter 238: Mr. Buttons' dream is true, and the one who ate the last slice of cheesecake was Fat Celestia.
Mystery solved.
3394818
How do you explain, then, the Protoss High Templars? Surely you can't ignore the veiled references Dawn Patrol makes to "pylons" and how the colony needs more of them to warp in a "mothership core." Recall that in canon MLP, the Protoss are voracious for poppyseed bagels (S3 E1: "The Crystal Empire") and they would be drawn to the island's opium-processing plants like moths to a flame.
No, I'm sorry. I don't buy it.
3394850
Ah, but that's exactly how it ties into the whole mystery from the start!
You see, Dawn Patrol is actually not a pony, but rather a zergling spah. He's trying to confuse everyone at Mother Base for the purposes of a heavy extraction, which is precisely what happened to Cabotage at the end of the Tiberium saga.
If you take that into account, and the fragments of Eden that he left behind, then you'd realise that the story references video games way too much.
Do you see now why they can't be aliens?
3394896
Damn, you're good.
3394914
But I just can't figure out what happened to Littlemoth's pet Moth, Little.
3394850 3394896
GEEZ GUYS SPOILERS
3394935
I just realized that I left out Chapter 547 entirely, which would have tied together the entire moth-vacation plot thread with Henry Rollins' mysteriously cancelled dental appointment and Dawn Patrol's cover story for Kerrigan's joint Terran/Zerg invasion.
…Oh, crap.
I think the only fair resolution is to remove the moth vacation from scoring consideration. I'm really sorry to waste your research time like that.
3395005
Dude but I wrote a 3000 word append to the main story just to explain the damn moth
THAT WAS THE HARDEST DAMN MystERy IKN THIAE NNAGEI9342GNEnbksrng328hi4bsnnbmslm emgls jsb fguvk
3395005
Just as well. In my version the moth is assumed bodily into Pony Heaven.
3395036
I feel our entries will be significantly different.
3393912
I'm going to echo what 3394541 said — what I'm looking for is for you to find all the facts in the story that give you clues about Peridot's death (and the other weird contradictions), and then offer me an explanation that fits all of the facts. "Could it be a multipony conspiracy?" That's your job to tell me! If you think that that's where the facts lead, then lay out your evidence and make your best argument that that's what happened. I'll judge the entry based on how much logical sense it makes, and how well it fits with the story.
Some of your questions I've already answered:
As to whether the named characters are the only ponies on the island: no, the town is probably approx. 100 ponies in size. It's possible that there are a few guards we haven't heard from, but even without knowing anything about them, you should have all the clues you need.
3394659
Your status as a multiple-time Writeoff finalist suggests otherwise.
If it's the poetry that's intimidating, write in prose! As long as you can fit it within the word count, I'm explicitly encouraging submissions of any style.
3394647
Don't forget the extra-pretentious use of lowercase 'i'!
But yeah, I've enjoyed all the entries so far. I'm going to have to ask everyone's permission to stick them in a google doc or something for public viewing.
3395119
I definitely wanna see the entries of everyone who's okay with it. There are just so many ways to look at this thing...
3395119
Well, you've got my permission, so that's one down. I'll be giving you my final draft that's a bit more polished and a bit less glurge next week.
3395119
You know, for fun I'm going to submit one which actually attempts to explain everything through the Protoss.
3396457
I will totally grant you a waiver of the "one entry per person" rule if you do.
(But you're still only eligible to win a prize once.)
3396461
If the protoss one ends up winning over my serious one I will kill myself.
cakeandcarrots.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/child_eating_sandwich.jpg
3396457
"Just for fun"?
ALIENS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS
3395119 Grumble grumble being encouraging grumble nice person grumble grumble Okay, I'll give it a shot. But it's for the money! Not because you're a nice person who does cool stuff, or anything like that!
I think it'll be tricky packing it all into ~1100 words, though.
3396815
You're absolutely right.
And I apologize wholeheartedly.
In fact, when the actual entry is revealed during the finals, I implore you to treat it as seriously as I did while writing it.
Well, it's a pretty bit of writing I submitted, but I doubt I'll get many left brain points.
3395113 kitsune, can you unspool the hint you gave me ? My phone can't read them ;-;
3397830
What was in the spoilertext is
"There most definitely IS a parent-child relationship in there somewhere."
3397847 danke and didn't you name paridot's boat, wasn't it one of the two boats missing ? Started with a T and was accompanied by another boat, was in cobotage's chapter I do believe
3397849
I'm trying my best to be helpful, but that's a question best answered by going back and rereading the story.
3397868 rereading now and I've concluded something :3
I think I've got this figured out, or at least a passable facsimile of such. This is like writing in reverse: read, think, outline, reread, outline… My collection of notes is longer than any of those dreams. The one detail that I'm still scratching my head over… I think you intentionally left out. Aside from canonizing the winning entry, I really hope you'll post some of your own notes on how you intended this all to fit together, since there's just enough ambiguity in how all the dreams coalesce to justify (and destroy) a bunch of different solutions.
… or it could just be that in my 5ish times reading the whole thing through I've missed a key detail that would turn this chaotic jumble into fine clockwork. Time will tell!
3398216
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/203123__safe_pinkie-pie_animated_moustache.gif.gif
I look forward to the entry!
After submissions end, current plans are to post a link to all of the entries whose authors give me permission to publically share. That's going to be the really fascinating bit -- seeing the variety of interpretations! If someone manages to read my mind, I'll note it, otherwise I'm sure I'll spend a little time rambling about the originally intended solution off in a blog post somewhere. (I'll emphasize, though, that I definitely plan on pointing out all of the clues relevant to the mystery(s), because that's what the left-brain judging will be based on.)
Damnit, there's 4 entries already huh.
Well, there goes my dream of placing top three.
3400333
Five, when you count the Protoss conspiracy theoryfOUR ENTrieSSSS
4OUR ENTRIES aaaannnnddd ONE SOLUTION
WHICH IS CORRECT
FiLTHY pROTOSS
3400485
What's that? What could you possibly be talking about?
Whelp, I've got a draft, and I'm even thirteen words under the limit, by Gdocs. (FimFic's is not so kind, but I can probably cut a bit in editing. Which word-counter are you using?) So I should be entering something. I'd very much like a pre-reader, although finding one who's read the story closely and isn't entering might be tricky.