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OC Slamjam


Official Account for Running the OC Slamjam!

Sequels1

  • TOC SlamJam - Finals
    A compilation of all entries received from the final rounds of the OC Slamjam, where authors invented OCs and were paired up into brackets to write a story about their opponent's OC and their own!
    OC Slamjam · 57k words  ·  27  4 · 1.1k views
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This story is a sequel to OC SlamJam - Round Two


The Official Compilation of all entries from Round Three of the OC Slamjam run by Obselescence, where authors invented OCs and were paired up into brackets to write a story about their opponent's OC and their own!

THE OFFICIAL CONTEST COMPENDIUM - Use this to find the relevant entries on everyone's OC. Control+F helps a lot in quickly finding names.

You have until 11:59 PM CST on Thursday, July 9 to cast votes on your favorite entry from each bracket. Each chapter contains both competitors' entries, each attributed to the author who created that OC. Cast your vote in a comment on the relevant chapter by writing "[OC Name]'s Author" in bold at the top of your comment. You may cast one vote per OC pairing. Votes should ideally be cast based on characterization, overall writing quality, and how well the author utilized the character sheets contained in the official contest compendium.

To retain anonymity, authors are allowed to cast votes on their own entries. You don't need to vote on entries marked as won by default. To spread the votes around, please try not to start from the beginning.

Chapters (9)
Comments ( 299 )
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Aw, why'd Redwood have to scrub out? Ah well.

Hey Obs, don't forget a "discussion" chapter!

6160358

Long story short, lack of inspiration. I came up with lots of ideas for my entry, but ultimately, none of them did anything for me. I need to be motivated to write. I need to really like an idea. Especially going up against Evergreen, since at this point in the contest, I wasn't going to win if I didn't give it my all. The name connection was just too tenuous for me to build anything meaningful from, and nothing else about Evergreen really fired up my imagination. Not a fault of the character, I'm just saying that it didn't personally inspire me. So I didn't write an entry this round. What's the point if I'm just going to half-ass it?

My congratulations go out to Evergreen's author. Good luck to them in the next round.

I can now slam my jams!

Time to slam down these entries and see which one jams the most.... wow, I'm running out of ways to use this contests title cleverly.

Don't have anymore Space Jam remixes to use. Since the 4th of July is fast approaching, and because of the character-centric nature of this contest, have this instead:

Current Vote Counts (Final Day)
Updates each midnight EST.

Closest pairs underlined. Vote on those first, if you're not voting on all of them!

Vanilla Skies vs. Luster Lock
1 to 16, Luster Lock's author
Wispy Willow vs. Lilligold
3 to 13, Lilligold's author
Haystacks vs. Mango Leaf
6 to 9, Mango Leaf's author
Loud Mouth vs. Ace Artisan
4 to 10, Ace Artisan's author
Firefly vs. Mild Manners
9 to 4, Firefly's author

Ha. Here I was, all set to report no change, when I refresh and see that Admiral's swept through—tightening up Haystacks vs. Mango, even. There's very little time remaining (excepting any "Obs isn't awake yet" grace period), but that one could actually still be turned around. Either way, see you next time, folks! Here's hoping we don't lose very many more voters as we go along.

Reminder to character accounts to not inordinately explain your decisions.

The winner is Vanilla Skies' Author

I will repeat a comment I've made in the previous round: the authors seems to do better with their opponents' OC than their own! Are authors getting bored of their own OCs?

Vanilla Skies' Author somehow does very little with Vanill Skies here. She could almost be anypony.
On the up side, the author's treatment of Luster Lock is hilarious and she comes up with a few really funny lines such as:

But Luster laughed. “Just messin’ with ya, Van - can I call you Van? - cool!”

Talk about a double entendre!
A final note the story was fun and enjoyable to read, although the ending was really far too abrupt.

Luster Lock's Author Really delved quite deeply into Vanilla Skies, but her Luster Lock could almost be any random pegasus (yes, she was "randomly chosen" by Vanilla Skies) asked to volunteer for the local weather brigade. The story had much more of a linear structure, with some decent world building re the work of a pegasus weather brigade. however, the characters never really connected in any significant emotional sense, and I feel they still parted strangers.

Both stories were well written, but In the end, the reason I gave the win to Vanilla Skies' author is the deeper engagement between the characters and more effective use of the opponent's OC.

Luster Lock's Author

Better written dialogue, better overall setup of the story, better and more detailed exploration of the characters. Luster Lock's author knocked this one right out of the park.

Wanderer D
Moderator

Luster Lock

It's not even a contest. I'm sorry, Vanilla, it was a valiant effort but this one wasn't even close.

Reasoning:
Vanilla's story is random. You can tell from the opening paragraph the author had no clue what to write about. The story is disjointed and the theme is... I hate to sound so blunt but... well it's child-like. Vanilla herself seems petulant. It feels at times that English is a second language to the author, given the way certain phrases are used.

Had Vanilla competed against someone in the previous rounds and maybe beat them, the feedback here might have been very useful for the author to take into account. As it is, the easy passes from before probably worked against the author this time.

Luster's story on the other hand, while similar in a bit of randomness on how Vanilla met Luster is focused on the character's skills. There's a clear objective on the story beyond dealing with being bored, the characters are looked into much more deeply and interact in-character with one another and a resolution that makes use of both character's skills.

All in all, a superior piece in all respects.

6160639

I calls 'em likes I reads 'em. If you want to discuss it by PM I'm very open to doing so. In a civilized fashion. Mr. Moderator.

Comment posted by Razalon The Lizardman deleted Jul 6th, 2015
Wanderer D
Moderator

6160693 Nope. If that's how you look at it, there's nothing to discuss. I changed my mind. Give me a sec. Mr. User

6160544 Same goes for their real accounts, too...

Lilligold's Author

Two very good entries with good character explorations and setups. But I like the premise of the second story a little better and found the storytelling to be really nice so I have to give it to Lilligold's author.

Luster Lock's Author

I'm going to be trying pretty hard not to be too blunt in this comment, and I apologize in advance if I fail at that.

First off, I'll say that Vanilla's author's entry needs some TLC. It's (I believe) one of the shortest entries we've had in the contest, but it still manages to have many more hard errors than Luster's author's entry, despite that being probably three or four times as long. There's some typos here (like "schedual" and "defenition") that I can't imagine a spell-checker wasn't screaming at Vanilla's author to fix. On top of that, there's hyphen misuse, erroneous formatting, punctuation and dialogue tag problems, phrase misuse—the works. Not to mention an awful lot of unnecessary repetition, at least towards the start.

Add to that the fact that Vanilla's entry has possibly the most nothing plot in the contest thus far. It's another of those conversation stories, but the frame of the conversation… is practically nonexistent. I'm fine (to some degree) with characters running into one another as strangers to get a plot moving, but when the plot is nothing more complex than that they have a talk because at least one of them has nothing better to do? It smacks of a lack of ideas. And granted, that's the great challenge of this contest—coming up with interesting ideas to introduce two likely unrelated characters—but here, it just wasn't a challenge Vanilla's author could overcome, it seems to me.

Characterization in the entry was better, but still somewhat flawed. Luster seemed a lot like she was trying to be Luster's author's round one or two version of her, but it was a little too superficial for me. She seemed to be stuck on an endless loop of grin –> smirk –> smile –> grin. Plus the teasing seemed to rely a little too much on telling in the narration ("She grinned teasingly") or just the fact that Luster hadn't stopped grinning yet; the dialogue itself felt sort of bland or average to me. Easy grabs at being teasing, via stock phrases and such—'easy-teasy', I'm going to call it. In regards to Vanilla's Vanilla, there's less to say, sadly. I don't feel that I got much of a sense of who she is, because her character in this little slice of her life only seemed to be based around the core concept of "I'm bored and irritable today, temporarily".

Lastly, I'll say I don't really fault it the sudden ending. It played into what there was of the plot—Luster suddenly appears and disappears, and this is a surprising and strange thing for Vanilla. I just wish there were more to the story than what there was, in general.

Luster's author's entry, on the other hand, I liked a lot.

I like the little evolution I'm seeing in the structure of Luster's author's entries, round to round. They seem to be getting more and more into the characters' heads, and turning into more action-oriented slices of life. In particular, I feel like the change from focusing on one character's perspective last round to an alternating perspective this round was a considerable boon—seems the author took the criticism about not having Luster's side of the story in stride.

On that note, I was pleased by the characterization, especially how the narration differed so markedly in tone and word choice between the two perspectives. I do miss the flirty Luster from round one, but getting a picture of a more vulnerable version of her here was interesting to me in its own right.

The plot, too, I have no complaints about. Almost passable as a full story outside of this contest, but for the fact that the characters—particularly the character of Luster—felt like they were the basis of the plot rather than the other way around. I really want that Evergreen vs. Fillygree feeling from last round again.

I'm going to laugh if Luster's author gets much further in the contest without Trixie even being named—all of his or her opponents so far have made reference to that aspect of Luster's background, and here, Luster's author finally touched on it, but he or she still didn't bring up Trixie specifically. I'm starting to wonder if this might be another one of those traps (like Minié's racism), because I feel like Luster's round one and two opponents' references to Trixie have been to their detriment, because they were just that—references. Bare little links between Luster and Trixie that wouldn't have worked outside the scope of this contest, because they would probably have confused a reader. In fact, that's one thing I'll say that Vanilla's author's entry has going for it: He or she stuck with the reference to Trixie long enough to explain it and give it grounding there in the story rather than relying on Luster's character sheet to back it up (though whether any mention of Trixie had to be present to make the story work is another question). If you're going to bring in something from a character's sheet, that's the kind of thing I feel like you've got to do for it to work.

That factors into one of the problems I had with Luster's author's entry, actually. Up until this round, I feel like Luster's author was very good at not putting weight on any incorporated aspects of the sheets unless there was a point to doing so—we would get things like Heather's fluency in German and Luster's use of her wings as hand stand-ins, but the former was made to matter to the story and the latter was relegated to an inoffensive character quirk. They worked for those reasons. Here, though, Luster's author makes a very small reference to Luster's background as an escape artist and then bases a part of the climax on it, and retroactively, even. That was probably the weakest part of the entry, for me, and I wouldn't have expected it from the way Luster's author's other entries have gone. I know he or she has it in him or her not to do it again.

Apart from that, my complaints on Luster's author's story are pretty minimal. As usual, it was a well-edited piece (lines still felt a bit weird to me, here and there, but I didn't mind much). It was a very solid entry.

Edit: 6160571
I'm not actually seeing a double entendre there. Mind clarifying for me?

Damn it, I still haven't read all the round two entries like I said I would.

Looks like I've got some work ahead of me.

Luster Lock's author

This one is a done deal, no contest.

This is gonna be said a ton more times: the main reasons here are 1) the yawning difference in writing skills, and 2) the fact that Vanilla's story just doesn't say anything.

There is one interesting thing to say about Vanilla's entry, though...

Luster Lock is a character who has shown us some great personality in her stories, effectively growing beyond her character sheet as we go! Vanilla's rendition of her is clearly building off of the snarky and outgoing version that came out while Lock was trying to build an anti-monster device and then getting socked in the muzzle for stepping over the line. Mind you, I don't think it worked here, but I'm now interested in seeing if other characters will show that dynamic.

6160452 Quotation box is messed up for the second to last chapter btw.

6160639

you know what. Just... no. Ye gods. It's not even funny

*wince*

I wasn't going to say anything...

Wanderer D
Moderator

6160817 I can be a total asshole sometimes. But an honest one.

6160817 6160844
He's not lying. I've met him.

:trollestia:

Wanderer D
Moderator

Lilligold's Author

I'm a sucker for romance, I guess? I really can't say more. I wish I had this long list of reasons why, but I really liked both stories. They both even had conventions! I guess for me it just boils down to feeling more comfortable with the character interactions in this second piece. Either way, both authors did a great job.

Firefly's Author

This one's a toughie, but I'd vote Firefly's Author because of the way he is able to make Mild Manners and Fire Fly really shine in their construction of the personal magic device.

6160781

Luster Lock increasingly abbreviates Vanilla Skies' name. Apply the same process to Luster Lock's name. :trixieshiftright:

Wanderer D
Moderator

Mango's Author

I liked how both stories handled the same theme of Haystack's aversion to leave the farm in completely different ways. Haystack's piece is pretty much spot-on when it comes to writing mechanics. I'm no editor by any means, but I like to think I'd catch some things and I didn't see a mistake at all. But it felt very, very passive.

Having said that, although less perfect mechanically, I liked the plot, interactions, dialogue and energy of the second story better. It's funny how this could be another of those "prequel-sequel" stories like it happened in the first round.

I found it funny (in a good way) how both stories echo through their setting the feeling of Mango's constant movement and Haystacks' stagnation in the farm for legitimate, but ultimately fear-fueled reasons. Haystacks' by having them both in a static moment of peace where Hay basically confirms he's remaining where he is and Mango's by having them in a constantly changing—despite the Drill Sergeant's efforts— mess. Although I loved how Haystacks was the one that shot Iron away.

Also... Pregnant Gillette Dude. Aurora Borealis is going to kill you if Rachis doesn't get to you first.
And... Minie :applejackunsure:

Liligold's author

Wispy went with his established formula of having a run-in with the other character while out ghost hunting, whereas Liligold responded to the feedback to push her own character's comfort zone.

The difference that this made was almost unfair.

It took me a while to warm to Liligold's story. The way she put the characters together was unimpressive, and the letters made me worried that we were going to be put through a bunch of lazy talksposition.

Then came the balls-out borderline purple prose in the later parts, and the brilliant use of Audrey (yes, ha ha, you're very clever), and I might have voted for Lili even if she blew it completely with Wispy instead of pulling an ending based on a totally original and completely valid reading of his character. I was not a Liligold fanpony before this entry; I didn't see how she was extraordinary instead of just pretty good. But. This entry. Damn.

I like Wispy, but his journey ends here.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

6160425
You should've just had them make out. Well, at least we get one more story with her. :B This matchup was the one I was looking forward to most.

6161009

If the contest didn't have a rule against clop, I would definitely have been able to write something. Sorry to disappoint. But I do intend to use Redwood in other stories once the contest is over and I can safely shed my anonymity. Maybe I'll write some sort of spy thriller.

6160972
A.) That's pretty convoluted, and I'm having trouble seeing that as being what the author intended.
B.) After Luster's author's round one entry, I actually took that to be the joke of her name anyway. That she was a "luster".

Okay one quick thing before I read.

Haystacks, buddy, this isn't how you open a story. The opening hook is called that because it should be engaging before the first sentence ends. I say this not despite but *because* of the fact that your writing here is good. Save this for something that isn't the first three entire paragraphs.

Ace Artisan's Author

... I had to really think about this before I give my vote.

Loud Mouth's entry was funny, hilariously done, had some good interaction between OCs and some good buildup. I laughed, I chuckled, I found it very enjoyable and well-executed, and the setup was also done well.

I have to give my vote to Ace Artisan's Author though. Just his use of Loud Mouth and Ace together in this melancholy situation where all they are doing are talking is too damn good. I mean nothing really happened, but I hung on every word and description. Through the One-shot he also explored facets of Ace's and Loud Mouth's personalities very well, and hence the reason why I give Ace's author my vote.

Comment posted by Razalon The Lizardman deleted Jul 7th, 2015

Mango Leaf's Author

I think the first story is better technically, but the second one was much more entertaining and I thought the callbacks to the previous stories were a nice touch that integrated smoothly into the story without sticking out.

All right, given my behavior last round, I don't really have a choice but to make these comments.

Throwing around gratuitous words from a dead language, as opposed to imitating real life local slang, worked fine for an island called Haywaii populated by talking horses. Fittingly, the one way that you take a cue from Mango is the one way you blow it: "cousin" instead of "cuz" or "braddah" is so far off that I started thinking they were actual cousins.

... you can't have known this, but... 'Okole is a cutesy schoolyard word for "butt," which means you said "ass up." I don't know how you would say "face down" in Hawaiian, but...

And on that subject, I am shocked and disappointed that you wrote this and somehow didn't realize that you made this out to be waaaaaay more than a bromance. I was looking forward to some kind of sweet or bittersweet gay sexual tension moment and you dashed my hopes.

My only other comment is that the problem with your proficient but shall we say less than kinetic style persisted for a really long time. It was fine once you got to the dialogue though.

On to the next...

Falcata's Author

I can really appreciate what Tidy Till's author was going for—it may be the most unique story in the contest so far. And while it was a lot of fun seeing such a cast of characters come together so naturally, it also spread every character rather thin, and the would-be focus characters didn't get much time together as a result. It's a story I would love to see outside of the contest, where the author is less restricted and can pull it off more smoothly, but as an entry here, it's just not enough.

Falcata's author took a more traditional approach, and I think it served them well this time. I really loved the interactions between Tidy and Falcata—they felt pretty natural. I only wish that the plot was less contrived. There's never a reason established for why this group of brigands is doing this other than Zap Apple Jam and money. The brigands themselves were kind of great, though, so I can forgive this somewhat. If you advance to the next round though, author, I think you could do with another round of editing. The writing quality was passable, but there were enough errors to take me out of the story a little—especially the few instances where you misspelled Tidy's name (Tiny). Otherwise, well done!

Torn here. I'll come back to this decision but I'm leaning toward Mango.

At first I was sure that I was going to comment with "the gimmick of writing movie-like voiceover is annoying and just doesn't work despite everything this story does right," but the fact is that toward the end I realized that I really undeniably liked the story, its fun tone, its natural dialogue, its exploration of the characters, and such.

Very good show from Mango Leaf.

Luster Lock's author
Reason: Longer length allows more of the characters to be shown and explored, as well as LL's superior language skills helping it along.

Comment posted by Razalon The Lizardman deleted Jul 7th, 2015

Liligold's Author

Both stories made excellent use of both OCs. Both, interestingly, placed the characters in a romantic situation.
More interesting still, in the first story Wispy loses his chance to bag some ghost because he went for the mare, while in the second exactly the opposite happens.
The first story was a straightforward narrative competently delivered.
My own reading experience for the second story closely parallels 6160980.

In the end, I chose Lilligold's Author's story because we all know that Wispy's defining characteristic is his utter obsession with ghosts, hence the first story ends on a cute, shippy note, but one that is unfortunately quite OOC.

Note to both authors: I was thoroughly entertained! Great stories, both!

MC: Well it's round three of the OC Slamjam, and you could cut the tension with a knife!
CC: Indeed it is, Mike! We have a capacity crowd tonight in the Hasbro Center Arena. The place is rockin' with fic fans from all over!
MC: Let's not forget the authors, Carl. Have you ever seen a more nervous bunch of horse-word hucksters in this hacienda mas hermosa?
CC: Indeed I haven't Mike. There are more plot devices being flung around than at a forty year old brony's bache –
MC (cutting in): – Lets remember Carl, this is a family show!
CC: In the words of Dame Pinkie Pie herself, yuppers, big time, Mike.
MC: And speaking of pie, it's time for a special message from our sponsors...

Summer Heat's author

Well here's this round's weirdly similar pair of stories.

Like Liligold and probably a few others, Summer Heat here wrote in response to last round's feedback. Summer gets taken down a notch and is only redeemed at the last second. Quick wrote almost the exact same story, even down to Cliffhanger's role, but Summer is based directly on Summer's previous rounds.

What swayed my decision is the fact that Quick Study did a lot of the thing where they pull directly from the character sheets, and a lot of telling and exposition besides.

I have more to say but that's all the time I have. I might come back to add more.

Luster Lock's Author

This one wasn't even close.

Also

It was a dark and stormy night, flying in the face of any concept of scheduling

I found this line highly amusing. Vanilla Skies went and mangled the spelling of 'schedule' in their entry, and the first line of Luster Lock's entry italicizes the correct spelling? Man, that's one harsh coincidence. Good show!

6160844 Something you two have in common, it seems.

Wanderer D
Moderator

Summer Heat's author

Let it not be said that I don't love little Quick Study. I think her character is adorkable and snarky in the right ways. Reminds me of a disgruntled Twilight Sparkle. However, while reading both stories I was more entertained by Summer's personal interaction with her, and the display of interests without telling too much. The Sultan story is very deep, but perhaps feels a bit... off with Summer. I did however like the callback to Booster Bones!

Well done both of you!

Wanderer D
Moderator

6161587 I guess you makes us three?

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