Two-Faced Charade Contest RESULTS! · 12:01am Mar 20th, 2018

The results are in and the winners have been decided for my competition! I'm posting the winners announcement here as well, because the winners were so good, I need to share them with you all.

1st PLACE

Two Stripes

Midnight Quill

FamousLastWords

This story was amazing, no two ways about it. From the beginning to the end, I couldn’t put it down. The author gave life to two characters with canon backstory but no personality and he did it in a way where I’m pretty much making it my personal headcanon.

Fleetfoot was smart, complex and extremely relatable. Flash Sentry was as well and was used as far more than just a pawn to bring in the cheating element. They both served a purpose and really, this story couldn’t have functioned with anyone else. That ’s a testament to his strong use of the characters.

But, despite all that, the real beauty of this story lies in the fact that the impact came not from the act itself, but the future repercussions it caused and would continue to cause after the story’s completion. Simply beautiful.

ChappedPenguinLips

Two Stripes was the only story any judge awarded a perfect score. We didn’t stick strictly to our scorecards, but still it was the only story to score flawlessly. And I will proudly claim that perfect score, and then some.

Two Stripes is great. Well-written, beautiful prose, good flow, and consistently paced throughout. But what I have to, absolutely have to praise the author for is how creative they were, in the characters, in challenging headcanons and the norms of most fanfics. The characters filled their namesake in fresh, engaging ways. Flash was more than a pretty boy—even though he was indeed a pretty boy—and he was more than a nice guy—even though he was a nice guy. His character had layers and nuances to his typical role that made him so entertaining. And I can’t praise the characterization of Fleetfoot enough. I wouldn’t do it justice, it’s incredible from start to finish.

The idea, the execution, and the impact of the story really drew a stake through my heart, and even if the ending was predictable, the impact still hit me at full throttle. I’ve had the story invade my thoughts multiple times today. I even wrote lyrics (no you cannot see) about the story in one of my classes. The story will not leave me alone, and I blame that partially on the beautiful cliffhanger of an ending, followed by a stunning one-liner. I want—no, demand a sequel or for the story to be elongated into a chapter fic.

Bang up job, Midnight Quill. One of my favorite stories on the whole site, and I’ve read thousands. I’m praying for more.

Tidal

I was the first to read your story and I’ll start by saying I loved it. From how natural the writing felt, to how the characters were written.

I enjoyed how you hinted at how things worked in your head cannon such as the military. The bar scene was natural, and the OC characters you created were fun and likable and I’ll probably model my own Head cannon of Flash after yours. Flash not knowing who Fleetfoot was addressing during their talk was a nice change to most cheating scenarios and Flash was a true gentleman which I loved. The rest of the scenes flowed up until the end.

One criticism I would add was how disappointing the little time we had to see Rainbow’s reaction was. You had some space in the word count to show us them talking which would’ve helped. But Fleet’s acknowledgment to the consequences of her actions, the thoughts she had running through her mind before she made her advances on Flash, the sacrifice she made for a chance at love and the twist with the title was so great.

Congratulations and keep on writing!

2nd PLACE

Forget and Forgive

elPossenreisser

FamousLastWords

Oh man, this story. It was pretty much tied with Two Stripes on my personal rankings. It was really great. From the characters and plot to the emotion and authenticity, it was just great.

Starlight and Twilight were both spot on for most of the story. And the manner in which you set up their ‘secret’ relationship was genius. And their reactions upon finding out about the act? Fantastic. And don’t even get me started on Trixie and her reaction at the end. Wow, it got me real good. Her lines were a thing of beauty and sadness.

But, the strongest element for me, overall, was just how morally terrible the end was. Without giving away spoilers, suffice to say Starlight and Twilight did not know how to live with themselves for hurtig Trixie and their actions proved it. It made me angry, it made me sad… it was just so unfair, so horrible, so mean, so thoughtless… and that’s why it wins second place. That was exactly the reaction I was looking for.

ChappedPenguinLips

This story tied for third with an unplaced story as far as my personal list goes, but the margin between second and my two third place entries were incredibly slim. Forgive and Forget, first of all, is the best-titled story in the contest. A large amount of the impact came from finishing the story, going back to the previous page and meeting the haunting title “Forgive and Forget.” It was numbing.

This story is very creative, like each of the winners, but I was most impressed with its structure, how the story moved from start to finish. It started a third of the way in and sort of worked itself backward, then ended at the start, essentially. It hit the hard reset button leaving the characters clueless and readers wrenching in pain. The good kind of pain. I felt a little cheated, coincidentally, but all in all, it was an impactful story, the characters were phenomenal, and the uniqueness and complexity of this story in the writing and idea category is impressive. That’s all I can say about it, it’s just so impressive. It takes a helluva a daring and brilliant writer to execute what Possen did, as well as they did.

Tidal

This story was so unique. Most people would find characters losing their memory to be very overused. But the way it was executed in this story was great!

The flashback to the cheating scene was nice for the reader to see what happened, but a little more detail about what caused her to start kissing Twilight would’ve done well for this story.

I also feel like getting to Trixie took a bit too long, however, I did like the moral dilemma that Starlight had on the way while thinking about Twilight. Twilight herself felt a bit out of character in the beginning but came back in the middle and end of the story.

Trixie’s reaction was beautifully done. Her anger, the bow she took to Twilight as she “accepted defeat”. It was great. The twist at the end was definitely the coolest because while Twilight did what she did for Starlight's sake I couldn’t help but smile at her selfish thoughts. Well done!

3rd PLACE

You Remind Me Of You

horizon

FamousLastWords

This story was a ride. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. It was chaotic, it was crazy, it was wild, it was an emotional rollercoaster… it was great. It had some kind of strange mood that was like a gray backdrop trying to produce color but failing to do so. And that worked wonders, in my opinion.

It’ll be hard to say much without going into spoilers because of the nature of the story, but suffice to say Lyra was fantastically written. There was scene where she smacks an intruder with a frying pan and I could picture it so perfectly I couldn’t stop laughing. BonBon was written very well, too… and so was Sweetie Drops for that matter.(Read the story if you want to know why that makes sense.)

It was a unique approach to the contests’ prompt about cheating and sympathy, that’s for sure. It was a much larger scope and vision than most other stories, if not all. The prose was a lot of fun and the story as a whole was quite endearing. Great job!

ChappedPenguinLips

You Remind Me of You was the first story I read for the completion, and it sure was an incredible ride from start to end. I started off with one of the best, and easily the most complex and interesting idea in the whole competition! Horizon really took me on a emotional rollercoaster of a ride, and couple times I thought the ride was going to fall apart with all the elements and notions included in the fic, but they were inserted so wonderfully, and with such care that the story was so intricate and enthralling. The concept alone was great, but the execution of the story was just “wow, he really pulled it off.”

Besides the concept, Lyra and her whirlwind of emotions took the reins of the story which was quite entertaining, perplexing, and heart wrenching. Watching her go through the agony that she did, along with some golden lines placed throughout the story, I was very easily hurt by this story. In a good way! The twists and turns became more and more predictable as the story continued but none of them lost their intended effect.

I’m absolutely in love with this story and was gushing over how great it was; it really was a fantastic way for me to kick off the competition! I wish I could have seen more of Bon Bon, and the ending seemed to unravel in itself a little bit, but overall, Lyra, an incredible, original concept, and intriguing, distinct prose earned this story a placement.

Tidal

This story was so brutal to me. While reading I was intrigued by how the relationship was presented, and when Lyra makes the revelation of her life I got literal anxiety. I put myself in Lyra’s place and knew if I was her I’d be broken.

As stated by Famous, it’s hard to say too much without spoiling this story due to how unique it was. I believe this story could easily be a very successful long runner and I believe it was an excellently creative idea. Wonderful job as always, Horizon.

When I originally talked with Tidal and Chapped about running a competition, I knew I wanted it to be a difficult subject. I'm pretty sure I completed that goal. However, I didn't think anywhere near this many entries would pop up. It was really startling to see how many authors stepped up to the plate for such a difficult prompt and made something great. I had a blast with this.

Keep rockin', people! Until the next competition.

Sincerely,

-FamousLastWords, Tidal, ChappedPenguinLips-

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