Hi guys! In case you haven't been checking Equestria Daily obsessively all weekend, just announcing here that the judging is done and the winners of the More Most Dangerous Game have been announced! Check out the post here to see the results!

Well, I did my best. But some of those judges just couldn't be bought.

4129553
"couldn't be bought" = didn't offer them enough. Everyone's got a price.

I don't even want to know what the hell CSquared08's going to do with that private continent. Just glad to get it off my hands, frankly.

Kind of bummed I didn't make the top 10, but then again, I never expected to make the finals, lol. so, not all bad in the end! The comment from 'Jake' regarding the 'bad guy exposition' I used was spot on. Too bad other judges didn't see it his way. xD

Still, congrats to the winners, and good job to all of the contestants!

4129587
Well

They don't call me "Her Majesty" for nothing

Happy contest, everyone!

Back to lurking in the shadows! Hiho, Lyra, away!

4129553
4129587
See, you guys always outbid me. Not even an honorable mention!

4129654
But ... but I call you Your Majesty for nothing. Though frankly, a whole continent does entitle you to an Empress upgrade.

4129695
Better luck next time. It's not too hard getting the hang of this bidding business. You just have to be willing to part with your material goods, your sense of self-worth, your dignity, several valued organs, a private continent, and immeasurable hampers of baked goods and money, and brief glory through horse-words can also be yours.

Man, I don't know why you guys wasted your time with material gifts. I found time-stamped photographs of the judges' houses mailed to their home addresses far more effective.

4129751
Wait, that still works? Google Maps kind of ruined that racket for me. Well, except for the brief period of time when people didn't realize all their houses were on street view.

Man, that was a good few weeks.

HOLD YOUR HORSES

Cloud Trails was in the Final 15, and yet it's not in the 15 listed there. What gives?

4130319
The Honourable Mentions aren't drawn exclusively from the top ten. What that means is Cloud Trails was good enough to get in the top 15, but just missed out on getting an honourable mention, in favour of other stories like Arcadia.

4130367
I see. Bit of a bitter pill to swallow after my initial joy at seeing I was a finalist, but oh well.

Any chance I'd still be able to hear what the strengths and weaknesses of Cloud Trails were? That was primarily what I wanted in the end.

Question for the EQD staffers:

I'm tempted to submit my entry for regular EQD consideration. However, I'm at least entertaining the assumption that Cupcakes and FoE related entries would essentially be ineligible for posting. Would that be a fair assessment of things, or would these types of stories have a chance?

In other words: Given that their source/inspiration materials are essentially verboten, would their related contest entries also share that fate?

Thanks!
GMP

4130391
In one sense, this is a moot point for some of the stories, since the top ten are guaranteed posts, so "The Cupcake Killer" is going up regardless of its relation to "Cupcakes." Since we knew the entire roster and the individual winners would get posted, the contest rules said entries needed to be tame enough to satisfy EqD's restrictions. At least I think so. I believe stories that could never make EqD on those grounds were among the reasons for disqualification, but I'll have to defer to someone who was part of the judging to comment on that.

As to your specific question, Fo:E isn't banned on its face; it's just that the vast majority of those stories are too gory and violent to post. If we got one of high quality that also fit within our content restrictions, we'd post it. "Cupcakes" is a little bit different animal, along with things like "Cheerilee's Garden" and "Rainbow Factory," in which the entire premise is so violent and gory that we didn't want to post the originals (yes, "Cupcakes" was posted at one time, but it isn't anymore). We also don't want to post things that take the same tone or that require knowledge of the original to work. In your case, the story stands alone. It's based on "Cupcakes," but it reimagines what happens to something less hopelessly gritty, and you don't have to know the first thing about "Cupcakes" to understand it. Add in that the prompt basically required you to borrow at least some elements from the story, and under the circumstances, I think you're fine. Doesn't hurt to try, and if it does cross a line, we'll say so when we read it, but you'll get some leeway on similarity with "Cupcakes." I say go for it.

4139975 Good to know. Thanks for the clarifications. :)

Don't know if anyone's paying attention to this thread anymore, but I finished my reviews and some people were interested, so here you go!

PART 1
PART 2

The two journals are linked to each other as well. :B