The Discovery - Results Thread! · 1:07am Mar 30th, 2020
We Need to Talk About Gallus
The five friends agreed to meet at 11 o’clock A.M. in the school library to talk about Gallus, but they also agreed that they should do so ‘surreptitiously’, because Silverstream had just discovered that word, and it was, just about, in her eyes, the best freaking word ever invented (It starts with ‘syrup’ you guys!) And you can’t say “no” to Silverstream just like that—so they all agreed to arrive at the library at the designated time, attracting as little attention to themselves as possible.
Silverstream came in a trenchcoat. After all, all the best spies had trenchcoats. But hers wasn’t one of those stealthy, on-a-top-secret-mission trenchcoats. No, her trenchcoat was one she’d purchased in a dark Canterlot alleyway from a pony with a crooked spine and a permanent shadow over his eyes, who had been trying to sell her what was inside the damn thing, and who had only agreed to part with it after she promised to buy all his merchandise as well. Merchandise she neglected to take out of the coat before arriving at the library.
The merchandise in her jacket was windchimes.
So she arrived, jangling like nocreature had ever jangled before, and made for a random shelf. She flicked her glance, surreptitiously, at the empty table in the center of the study space.
The other students decided to find somewhere else to study.
The first ponies to make for the exit met Smolder, barging through the doors with both arms outstretched. She plopped down in her chair and crossed her arms, silently daring the whole school to ask what she was up to. Smolder never did anything ‘serendipidously’, or whatever Silverstream’s latest word-of-the-week was. Any word that had more than five syllables in it was simply not worth the time and energy.
Sandbar’s friends forgot to tell him about the surreptitiousness of the meeting. He simply walked in past the stunned observers and shouted, “Hey, Smoldy!” and sat at the table. “Where’s everyone else?” He would draw the least amount of attention of all of them, as usual.
Ocellus watched from a distance. She, a professional at this sort of thing, pretended to be a pegasus pony studying at the darkest table in the room. After three of her friends’ pathetic attempts at avoiding attention, she sighed, stood up, and transformed back into herself, scaring the absolute bejeezus out of the pony next to her, and made for the table.
The rest of the students began packing frantically. Then, they heard a scuffling sound overhead.
How Yona got onto the roof on her own was anypony’s guess, but everypony would later agree that it was not a good omen. The only thing you should never give a six-hundred pound yak is potential energy.
Yona placed a diamond-cutter tool on the skylight and spun it around in a giant circle, cutting it with a perfectly surreptitious, horrible squealing sound. The only sound more horrible than that one was what they heard right after.
“Whoops.”
A disc of solid glass fell into the library and smashed into pieces, causing abrupt chaos. Yona cringed with shame, not because her cover had been blown, but because she’d accidentally let gravity smash something for her. This was considered the highest level of shame in Yakyakistan culture, so to make it up to her Gods, she went around and smashed all the other skylights, raining glass upon everypony in the library.
Satisfied, she threw down a rope and descended right into her chair. Finally, they had arrived.
“Wow,” Silverstream said, stripping her coat off and letting it fall to the floor to the sound of a dishwasher falling off a cliff. “Who knew the library would be empty!”
“Yes,” Ocellus droned. “It’s a mystery.”
Silverstream picked a few stray pieces of glass out of her hair and sat down. “So! We all know why we’re here.”
“I don’t,” said Sandbar. “I mean, you said there would be free pizza. And I know you lied about it all those other times, but”—he knocked a hopeful hoof on the table—“this time for sure.” He peered around the back of his chair to the door. “Delivery pony here yet?”
“Sandbar,” Silverstream said gently. “I lied about the pizza again.”
Sandbar turned back and looked down between his hooves. He sniffed. “Deep down I knew that.”
“But it’s good that you’re here,” Silverstream continued. “You’re roommates with Gallus, which means you’re in the best position to destroy him.”
Sandbar shifted in his seat. He scanned his friends faces for information and found nothing.
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe you’d better… bring me up to speed here.”
Smolder huffed out some smoke. “We’re here because we all have the hots for Gallus, and it’s going to ruin our friendships.”
The table, sans Sandbar, nodded in agreement.
“Oh?” Sandbar said. He avoided their eyes. “Is… is that right?”
“It’s an issue,” Ocellus said. “I can’t focus on my schoolwork because I can’t stop thinking about him. And if we’re all hopelessly in love with him too, it’ll tear us apart.”
“He’s too attractive!” said Smolder.
“And smart,” Ocellus added. “And brave. And that beak.”
Silverstream gasped and fanned herself with her talons. “Don’t mention his beak, please…”
“Yona no have silly crush on Gallus,” Yona lied. “But griffon must go down. For good of friendship.”
“Really?” Ocellus argued. “You don’t think he’s the kindest, cutest, most lovable griffon you’ve ever seen?”
“Kind?” Yona frowned. “Yona think Gallus asshole.”
“I was thinking about that too,” Sandbar said. The rest of the table turned to him. His eyes went wide. “I mean—the same thing. I was thinking the same thing.”
Silverstream placed her talons on her cheeks. “Sandbar, not you too.”
“Can you blame me?!”
“No,” the table said in unison.
“It like virus,” Yona said. “Only scarier.”
“We need decisive action,” Ocellus said. “But what?”
Yona, in a constant state of escalation, raised her hoof and shouted, “Death!”
Silverstream shook her head. “No, no, nothing that dark. It definitely starts with a ‘D’ though.”
Yona shrunk down a little. “Demise?”
“Downfall,” Ocellus said. “That’s what we need. Something to cut him down to size. Make him more...” She rotated a hoof in the air. “Damaged?”
“But I love his damage,” Silverstream sulked.
“My favourite part about Gallus is the fact that he’s an orphan,” Smolder said. “If he becomes any more damaged, I might not be able to stop myself.”
“It is his greatest quality,” Ocellus confirmed.
A silence settled over the table for a time. Not too short a silence to be worth going unmentioned, but not too long to be awkward. The kind of silence that you need every so often if you’re getting to separate two story beats by a healthy dose of prose. As an example.
“I wonder if we’re the only ones experiencing this,” Ocellus murmured.
Smolder looked over her shoulder. “Say, Professor Rarity?”
“Yes?” Rarity said, walking out from an aisle. “I’ve been here the whole time.” She was wearing something typically extra.
“Quick question. What do you think about Gallus?”
“Only when I’m breathing,” Rarity answered. When she received blank looks, she laughed. “Oh, terribly sorry. I thought you asked ‘when’ I think about Gallus.” She touched her hoof to her chin. “I suppose I’ve still answered your question, though.”
“Who else is this happening to?” Sandbar asked the room.
The doors to the library burst open, letting heavenly light shine through, and in-stepped Princess Twilight Sparkle, Ruler of Equestria. Somewhere, a choir of angels sang.
“Students,” she said. “I’m very disappointed in you. I heard from Harmony what you’ve been up to.”
The friends cringed. Not just because they felt they were in trouble, but the words ‘I heard from Harmony’ was just about the lamest thing they’d ever heard.
“I can’t believe you would all plot the destruction of your fellow student,” Twilight said. She paused to let those words sink in. She even kept them under four syllables, for Smolder.
Then she smiled and finished:
“...without me.”
Gallus made his way to the library to meet up with his friends. He had a confession to make to them, a secret that had been burning up his insides ever since last Hearth’s Warming, when he’d accidentally spilled his lunch onto the tree and was forced to make up a tragic backstory to avoid them all finding out how much of a klutz he is.
He hoped his friends wouldn’t mind that he lied. Besides, on the bright side, they no longer had to feel sorry for him being an orphan, considering he wasn’t an orphan at all, but had four parents, being the son of two dirt poor griffons who split up and remarried two filthy rich griffons, leaving Gallus with four incredibly compassionate and cheerful parents who were all heavily involved in his life and supportive of everything he did. They didn’t even mind that he was asexual.
Gallus arrived at the library and took a deep breath. He opened the door to find the entire school. Inside the library. The entire student body was there. Students, teachers, and even one Ruler of Equestria, sitting at the head of a mass of twenty tables. There was a lot of broken glass.
“Uh,” Gallus said.
“Hi, Gallus!” cheered Silverstream. “We were just, um… We weren’t doing anything.”
Applejack cleared her throat.
“Right,” Silverstream said. “Honesty. Sorry, Gallus, we were plotting your… Hm. Sandbar, what word did we settle on?”
“Uh.” Sandbar reached for his notepad. “Disappearance.” He smiled and put down the notepad.
“That’s the one! We’re planning your disappearance.” Silverstream glanced around the table. “Surreptitiously.”
Gallus hung his head. So they’d found out he lied. And, rightfully so, they were going to get rid of him. He had to admit it was only fair. But he couldn’t help feel his heart breaking in two at the thought of not coming to school anymore. And the feeling manifested into three words, which he knew weren’t even true, but he mumbled just loud enough for the hushed student body to hear.
“Nobody loves me…”
And the entire school cooed.
SO HERE WE ARE
It’s results time
Right on schedule
good job team
You have arrived! Not just to the results blog for The Discovery, but to the paragraph within the results blog that the fewest people will read. Oh, be honest. The story above may have gotten a few reads, but the moment you all read the title, the amount of collective fingers flicking their scroll-wheels, touchpads, and phone screens downwards probably caused a series of deadly tornadoes sometime in our future. That would be just our luck.
What are you still doing here? Go read the results already!
Honorable Mentions
It’s a common problem judges have when writing these posts, that there are just too many great stories that can’t all get something written about them in the results. Well, Honorable Mentions are how we cheat the system. Fuck the rules. These stories are worth your time even if they didn’t clinch a spot on the podium.
I’m going to hand these off to the other three judges, and I’ll see you all again at the top three finishers.
Hot Cocoa is Illegal in Yakyakistan, by Jack of a Few Trades
Semillon: If each of the Young Six had a cult, Yona’s would be the type to require a blood sacrifice on a specially engraved wooden table every few months. Needless to say, I have murdered 10 men in her name.
The fandom’s been needing more Yona content, and Jack of a Few Trades has got you covered. In Hot Cocoa is Illegal in Yakyakistan, she inadvertently gets her entire village addicted to sweet cocaine everyone’s favorite holiday vice and it’s great. Jack writes Yona’s voice in a way that feels true to her character in the show, while exploring the depths of her that the show never did. Her self-assured, wonderfully enthusiastic character makes for a delightful pairing with Gallus’s profiteering personality, and this is definitely a story to sit down with a nice cup of Swiss Miss, or whatever inferior hot cocoa brand you prefer, and read on your couch with the fireplace channel playing.
An Unexpected Change(ling), by Parker
Aragon: You know which two words I had never used together up till now? “Cute” and “visceral”. Here’s a quote for the special edition: An Unexpected Change(ling) was so gross. I loved it.
What Parker did with this story is a feat of technical writing; it’s rare to read a piece of fiction able to describe a character’s state with such physicality that you feel it yourself as you read, but here we have a shining example. I’m really, really trying not to spoil much; I read this story without knowing anything about it -- I didn’t read the short description! Mostly because I’m an idiot -- and I think it works better that way.
I loved it for it. Character is king in this story; there’s a nice plot, there’s a great twist, but Ocellus -- the way she’s written, the way she thinks, the way she acts -- takes the cake. It’s delightful. But above it all, I really want to congratulate Parker on the little details. The imagery, the descriptions, the way every emotion has a flavor. Put together, it all creates quite the picture, it’s greater than the sum of its parts, and the result has to be seen to fully get it. Viscerally cute, I keep telling you.
Hearth’s Sparring Eve, by Raugos
Bachiavellian: Like a lot of us, when I first watched the trailer for the MLP Movie, I rolled my eyes hard at the angry, edgy, broken-horn villain. Little did I know that Tempest Shadow would eventually end up absolutely stealing my pathetic little heart.
In Hearth’s Sparring Eve, all of the best parts of her intriguing personality are present in full force: her inexhaustible dedication, her hidden genuineness, and her not-so-hidden double helping of badass. The way she bounces off of the generally cool-headed Gallus, here, really is all sorts of fun. Raugos does an excellent job of handling both the chemistry of the back-and-forth dynamic between the two, and the high-energy action of the back-and-forth blows that they trade. And the way the story as a whole ties things back to Gallus’s character arc on the show was a really nice finishing touch.
Now let’s talk winners
Third-person perspective: Go!
Scyphi’s Somnambulism is classic MLP fanfiction. It’s cute, it’s charming, it’s cozy, (it’s shipping), the characters are all on-point, and underneath it all is a clever, solid premise. If you’re looking for a story to kick back and relax to, look no further than Somnambulism.
Semillon described it as “a cold glass of beer after a full day’s work. It makes you feel good, quenches your thirst, and satisfies without fuss.” Aragon felt the same, even more strongly: “God dammit sometimes you just want a bit of silly and a bit of fun. This story has a breezy feel to it, and a gentle undertone, and it doesn't just come from the romance. It comes from the way the characters interact, from the way romance and friendship coexist, from the little gestures the characters make for the sake of one another, and how ridiculous it gets at points.”
Bachiavellian not only enjoyed it for its coziness, but also for what else it has going for it: “It manages to be a pretty delving character study while also being things like ‘quirky’, ‘cute’, and ‘breezy’.” Miller agreed, because although he liked the story well enough the first time, he found it growing on him even more with every read. “This story tricks you into thinking it’s just a simple story, not trying very hard to do much of anything. But behind that there’s real, relatable emotional work being done with Gallus and Smolder, both in the conflict itself, and the resolution.”
Easy, breezy, beautiful: Dragongirl. Much like Smolder taking Gallus home as her prize, Scyphi is taking home $55 for writing this great story.
We can all agree that the Gallbar pairing isn’t for everyone. So it goes without saying that when Jay Bear v2 submitted Your Better Half, he was taking a bit of a risk. But to anyone who doesn’t give a chance to this pairing, one thing is clear: they’re missing out on at least one fantastic story.
All four judges agreed that the chemistry between the two leads gave the story tremendous shine. It’s in their dialogue, their interactions, the secrets being kept, and in Sandbar’s daydreams about what life would be like with his birdboy. The daydreams were Miller’s favourite part: “Despite everything that’s telling Sandbar to keep 60 feet of distance between himself and Gallus, his desire to be with him, even just for one measly day, keeps bringing him back. And it pulls you through the story by your nose. You genuinely want things to work out for him.”
Semillon also agreed that Your Better Half was compelling: “The drama was delicious. Sandbar’s yearning to be with Gallus despite his cat allergy is the kind of conflict that feels simultaneously like a boa constrictor and a warm blanket around my heart.”
For Bachiavellian, it was another piece of classic fanfiction: “The tone is on-point; it's the kind of easy-going Slice of Life story that really unlocks that warm-inside feeling of reading a cozy fanfic with your favorite characters in it.”
Aragon was most impressed by the story’s ending, which was equal parts simple, imperfect, and unexpected. “With romance, the devil is in the details; we know the major beats the story will reach, but how they'll get there is what gets the reader engaged. That's the biggest strength of this fic, as well as the ending -- and what is and is not resolved.”
Your Better Half sneaks up on you like spring. Thank you for putting this together, Jay Bear v2. For your efforts, you will receive $105, which oughta buy you a few boxes of allergy meds.
AugieDog’s Be Still is one of those stellar pieces of fiction that tries to do several things at once, and somehow doesn’t faceplant. Quite the opposite: consider the landing stuck. AugieDog has taken all ten of his grocery bags up the stairs to his kitchen in a single trip. Be Still has got teen angst, it’s got teen romance, it’s got Tree of Harmony worldbuilding, and on top of it all is a thick creamy layer of icing made of pure style.
Be Still left Semillon jealous in two ways: “It hurts me that a magical tree will never put personal investment in me and my relationships. This story has a premise that I’m jealous I didn’t come up with, a charming, unique perspective character and a consistency throughout that made it nice and easy to read.”
Bachiavellian, meanwhile, took a particular liking to the worldbuilding. “I really liked how it expanded on canon from "What Lies Beneath" in an interesting way. Twi-Tree-AI is really charming, and figuring out the logistics of her existence was really fun.”
In the end, what sold Be Still the most, the judges would agree, was the voice. “I want to read more stories in this perspective now,” Miller said. “It’s the type of flagship story trying something nobody’s ever tried before that leaves you wanting to see more stories and more authors adding their own take to it.” Aragon agreed: “To write an alien perspective in such a way that we understand its mind works differently than ours, while still making it relatable, is made to look easy in Be Still. And I can't stress enough how impressive a feat that is.”
Be still my beating heart. Thank you for submitting this story, AugieDog. We hope you enjoy your $165 of cash money, and we hope you’ll always keep doing what you’re doing.
Alright, wrap it up
So.
You may have noticed our three winners share a theme. A theme surrounding a certain blue griffon boy. But, in our defense, you started it. I’m honestly amazed how much focus he got. There were only, like, six stories where he didn’t appear on-screen. But, as the supervillain Syndrome once said, once everyone has written a story about Gallus… no one has.
Or something. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Incredibles.
And I don’t know how much of the Gallus-love was out of a genuine interest in blueboy’s character, and how much of it was just trying to appeal to Semillon and myself, but I’m going to go ahead and assume the numbers are 100% and 0% respectively. Because this is my contest and I’ll do whatever the hell I want with it.
Except now it’s over! Which is very bittersweet. I’m glad it’s time for money, and time for feedback. But on the other hand, it’s over. Shit sucks.
But in the last space of blog I have, I wanted to say thank you, wholeheartedly, to each and every one of our participants, and to all of our readers. You all made this contest such a damn good time. Whenever I look at the gallery of stories we got, or the traction and comments and love so many entries received, I smile so freaking wide. It's an incredible, irreplaceable sort of feeling.
Lastly, I couldn’t go this whole blog post without thanking my judges for their tremendous help putting this together. And yet somehow I did!
BYE!
I hope you all enjoyed the Gallus is a Slut Olympics.
I mean, The Discovery.
It's been real.
And I really do have to thank my judges, who put a considerable amount of their time into reading so many entries, pitting them against one another, and butting heads over who should be crowned the winners. And they did it all because their friend had a silly idea of hosting a silly contest about a diverse cast of silly cartoon characters. My love goes out to them.
If you’re interested in what they’re up to: Semillon is currently writing a rather gripping Gallus-centric adventure fic called Never Seen (edited in part by me!), Bachiavellian usually spends his time submitting and reviewing MLP fanfiction over on the Writeoff, and Aragon can always be seen doing something irresponsible on his page.
I’m going to go back to writing stories, on occasion, that are good, on occasion.
Art by jowybean.
Much love, and good luck with your bad selves.
M-
THANKS EVERYONE FOR ENTERING I LOVE YOU ALL I HAD SO MUCH FUN READING EVERYTHING
REMEMBER TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH TWICE A DAY
Congrats to the winners!
Thanks for holding this contest. Will you still be doing reviews of the other entries?
Glad I got to participate! Thanks for hosting this contest 👍
Now, I shall crawl back into the darkness I spawned from, to return when the (Hopefully) second discovery contest begins.
Hisssssssssssssss
A little sad I didn't at least get an honorable mention, but I still had fun in the contest and I'm grateful for it.
Congratulations to all the winners and honorable mentions, you earned it and I hope to see you all again in another contest soon
>gallbar fic gets #2
what a fuckin travesty
Unexpected Change(ling) deserved that spot, and anything gallbar deserves the dumpster behind a seafood shop
5231415
Absolutely! Reviews will come as we become able to write them. I think the whole quarantine thing has put a bit of a wrench in everyone's availabilities but they're still happening.
5231403
I'll gladly take that participation medal! It still feels nice that I at least took part in the fun. It's also a sort milestone for me since this is the first contest I saw through to the end.
If you ever decide to come up with another, you can bet Gallus's feathery flank I'll be there. Thanks for being an awesome host!
What a great group of stories! I'm incredibly proud to have nabbed an Honorable Mention against such wonderful competition and will forever cherish having achieved "viscerally cute" status.
Special thanks to the judges for all the hard work of putting this on!
Congrats to all the winners - scratch that, congrats to everyone who participated! I had a feeling that Be Still was going to get the number-one spot, and it's definitely earned.
5231445
Cool. I'd be interested in seeing what you guys have to offer.
All the best!
An excellent contest and an excellent turnout! Congrats to the winners!
I'm glad to finally be freed from the shackles of thinking about this contest every day.
Gotta say I'm surprised that the stories I expected to get first and second got honorable mentions instead.
You guys were getting just a wee-bit burnt out on Gallus-focused stories weren't you?
Looks like it...
Yep!
Sorry for having contributed to that, but blueboy's way too much fun to write!(For me anyway)
In any case, we're finally at the end, and... Nuts. I didn't get even get an honorable mention?
Ah, well. Guess that just goes to show just how much more I can and need to improve, regarding my writing! Either way, win or lose, I still had a lot of fun! 
Thanks again for hosting this contest, and to those that did win, congratulations, you earned it!
Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off to find whatever lingering remnants of toilet paper, tissues, and Lysol I can, while finding time to finish my next little project for the two people that asked for it.
But in all seriousness, everyone please stay safe! I know it's all we can do right now, but just... Please stay safe.
Well, holy hannah! Walking away from this with third place after all! Good thing I decided to go ahead and write that fic relatively last minute and on a whim after all, eh?
Seriously though, I really wasn't expecting "Somnambulism" to be as much of a hit as it was, but hey, I'm certainly not complaining.
(...guess I oughta go and make sure my PayPal account is still all up to snuff now...)
I gotta admit though...I'm just a little bit miffed that "Hot Cocoa is Illegal in Yakyakistan" didn't win, because the moment I finished reading that fic I was thinking "okay, forget my entries, this fic's gotta win, it's just gotta."
The fact it gets an honorable mention does placate me some...but...c'mon! 
Ah well...to be perfectly fair, there were a whole lot of very awesome fics throughout this whole contest that deserve shout-outs too, and oh boy do I believe it when the judges say it was hard to pick just a few of them to win because I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we wish we could've made them all winners.
So we'll just have to suffice with saying we're still glad to have gotten the chance to read them because we enjoyed them and are glad they were submitted for all of our reading enjoyment, no matter where they or did not place.
I was going to point out how all of the winners were ship fics (to some degree)...but then so were at least three-fourths of all the other fics, so I guess statistically speaking, I should've expected that.
Well then. Sounds like it's time to pop some popcorn for a rewatch.
It is a very much appreciated preamble to the results.
This is very, very Smoulder. It's great.
5231403
You can probably thank The Hearth's Warming Club for that. If he wasn't already the favourite for being the most sarcastic one of the Student Six, a sad backstory pretty much sealed the deal.
My favourite comment on the episode follow-up was (paraphrased): "It's official. Gallus is an orphan. Ya'll can leave Scootaloo alone now."
Congrats to the winners, and thanks to the judges for diving deep into Gallus-centric territory for us! Hope you didn't get too burnt out on everyone's favourite blue catbird.
I'm gonna have to echo 5231528's sentiment; I was so sure that Hot Cocoa is Illegal in Yakyakistan was gonna win.
Congratulations to the winners of the contest. It was great fun taking part.
So close, yet so far.
Congrats to the winners! I did not read the second-place story yet (a situation soon to be remedied), but I did read first and third! AugieDog and Scyphi really pulled out all the stops. Be Still was a masterclass in narrating from an alien perspective, and Somnambulism was a real treat. Subconsciously clingy Smolder doing what we all wish we could do and snuggling with best blue boy? Sign me up.
I'm sad that I didn't make the cut, but still, it is an honor to be mentioned. Maybe next time. There will be a next time, right Miller?
A big thanks to all of you judges, 5231403, 5231409, Bachiavellian, and Aragon for putting this on. It was a great exercise and really got the community to pump out some content in an area that has been sorely lacking. You did a good thing. We thankles ye all for the reading material and the good times.
And 5231530 5231528 You guys make me blush. Seriously. Thank you for the votes of confidence
Hoy congrats for everyone, it was a really fun event, so thanks for the organisers too.
I'm a bit bummed out that I thought we were gonna get the reviews in tandem with the results but hey, not everything can be how I want it I guess.
Congrats to the winners! I'm a bit disappointed that my fic didn't at least get an honorable mention, but I acknowledge that my story was rushed.
Congrats to the winners and thanks for running the contest, this experience had turned out better than I thought it would be.
I did like reading all three of the honourable mentions, but sadly only read the first place winner Be Still which did actually have some good jokes that made me laugh.
Thanks to the judges and all the contestants! I had two ideas when Miller first announced this contest over on the Writeoff site. I ended up writing the second of them for a completely different Writeoff contest and then posted it here on my Baal Bunny account as "At the Seams," but this idea was always the one I knew I had to take the time to do up properly. So thanks again!
Mike
First three reviews of mine are up! Ball's officially rolling.
5231415
Like Semi said, the quarantine is a, uh, interesting development let's call it. Like yeah, we've all got loads of time now, but some days we're really preoccupied, or the mental just isn't there. For me, at least, things are hitting a steady rhythm, but to anyone waiting for their review, I hope you won't mind giving us a little patience. Not that you haven't given us enough of that already
5231462
5231528
5231530
5231613
Lots of love for Hot Cocoa, and it's deserved. All six stories up there had a lot of things going for them; s'why we loved them. And what's a little judgework without some controversy?
And hey, a little birdie told me Jack was one of the, like, thirty of you that requested feedback, so that'll be appearing at some point. Just when you thought this was all over. The fun never... ever stops.
(I'm the little birdie)
5232041
Absolutely! I totally get that. Take it easy!
My goodness!
I am honored (and also seriously shocked) that Your Better Half got into the top three. Thank you to all the judges for organizing this, and everyone to contributed. This contest led to a ton of great stories the explored a lot of nifty ideas in creative ways, and I hope every contestant keeps writing.
And add me to the list of people surprised Hot Cocoa wasn’t in the top three. Jack of a Few Trades wrote a hilarious story there.
Congrats to the winners! What a fun contest!
Damn, Bubble didn't even get an honorable mention. :(
Glad Jack made the list. It was fun editing for him. Somnamblism and Be Still were also really good. I have yet to read the 2nd place story, but Hearth's Sparring Eve was my favorite of the contest and An Unexpected Chang(ling) inspired a few horror story ideas.
Good work to everyone that entered the contest. It was fun reading all the stories!