5119080

Nice, you made it in time ! The edge judges you favorably.

5120381 Glad I was able to fit it in there with all the other stuff I've had going on! I sure hope y'all like it, regardless of how well it does in the contest.

Here is my entry: O Blessed Night
Note – you need the password to access it: "unfinished"
Second note: due to time constraints this had not been edited.

It came out like shit, but I suppose that's all I could come up with with two days of writing.

Allegiance

Password is Nope.

Edit: I just realized how much lack of pone my fic has.

Fuck.

Loading... loading... loading... complete !

Acquiring target for elimination.

Hello everyone ! This is a friendly AND edgy message, to remind everyone that the contest is now officially over ! The judges will now start going over everything, debate and talk about each of the submissions. We have no results release schedule, but it shouldn't be very long.

I'd like to personally thank all of you for participating, it's certainly a great feeling when one see so much enthusiasm. The Edge is very pleased, and your contributions shall not be forgotten.

Rest well, sleep well, buckle up for the incoming Season 6. You'll hear from us soon... one way or another !

(Also, for those who got the reference in the first few lines, kudos. It's not an easy one.)

5122104 I'm actually having trouble getting into the story. I've tried nope, Nope., Nope, and I still can't get to the story.

Could you check everything is working as it should be, please? You have no idea how hard it is to judge stuff you can't read.

5122282 Huh, it was actually: Nope.

5122608 Sorry, I still can't get in.

Could you try changing it to:

hapisbestadmin

without any spaces and without any capitals?

5122716 Done.

5122814 Huzzah! I made it.

That means all the submissions are visible in some form or another.

5123740 Nah, you'll be all right. I'll be making a post here later with links to everything for convenience, so don't worry about it.

Just for convenience's sake, here are our list of entries:

Allegiance by Shocks (password: hapisbestadmin)

O Blessed Night by Daffadah (password: unfinished)

Celestia's Lost Class by Lise Eclair

Youth Group by The Hat Man

Deadly Courier by Prince Conjure

Winter's Crown by Smaug the Golden (not Sorcerer)

The Great Equestrian Ball Scramble by Thought Prism

Crime Pays by Chillbook1

Causality and Negation by Garzeel_

Devil with the Silver Tongue by Jigsaw

Anima Creation of a Princess by PortalJumper

That's 11 entries, which isn't bad at all. Must have been the sweet promise of steam games. We'll begin judging shortly, and when we've gotten through discussing the entries, we'll post a brand new thread to indicate dem winners. If there are stories with multiple chapters, only the first chapter will be considered, however, if you should decide to continue the story, adding an extra chapter won't disqualify you: it'll just mean we won't be including the chapter in our decision. So if we're taking a long time (and lets face it, we will) don't feel the need to put your plans on hold just for us.

Good luck, and I'll see you again soon.

5124523 Hot damn, some of these are impressive.

And here I was hoping to place.

5124523 Um.. I'm the author of Winter's Crown. No idea why your thing says Sorcerer.

5127260 Oh. That's my bad. I must have got muddled. The URLs get very long in a post like that.

5127276 Thanks. Out of curiosity, any idea as to when results will be posted?

5127289 I wouldn't expect us to be hasty, to be honest, but I wouldn't expect it to take longer than two weeks. I'm a notoriously slow reader.

5122277

Loading... loading... loading... complete !
Acquiring target for elimination.

Is that BlazBlue?

5133584

Holy edge, you got it. Congrats ! Makes me hapyy others know about those great fighting game.

5133833 Oh yeah, that game is awesome, though I admit that I mainly played Calamity Trigger, and not much of Continuum Shift or Chrono Phantasma. Awesome soundtrack too.

I'm kind of a nut for fighting games, like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, and Skullgirls, even though I confess I'm just so-so at them. Heck, I even made a sizable contribution to Mane 6's new game Them's Fightin' Herds. Figured they deserved a little love after Fighting is Magic got canned.

5149434

Don't fret, we got this. We've just been slowed down because Haph is travelling, Verbose is working and I'm having my Uni' Exams. Hang in there a bit longer !

5149994 The pressure, it is too much!
I'll wait, no worries :)

5091601 I screwed up. So, long story short, I was showing my entry to someone, he commented, so now GDoc marks the story as edited recently. Should I provide a picture with proof of no edits, or is it all good? Or am I just disqualified.

5151204 Nah, it's all good. Don't worry. I'm sure we don't need evidence that you've not majorly changed the submission.

5151211 Thanks. I was getting nervous there.

5151211

I added chapter two under the assumption it doesn't count for the contest. I'll be adding more chapters as they're written and edited, but I won't publish until the contest is over. And I'm waiting for some artwork, anyway.

5157820 That's all good: I mentioned (somewhere) that if you want to add a chapter, that's fine, we just won't take it into account or anything. That way, you guys don't have to wait on us slowpokes finishing them all before you can continue and stuff.

5157826

Thanks for the confirmation!

Any day now...

Just a quick sit-rep: we're almost done judging. We've gone through all the stories, looked at the ones we wanted for the top three spots, and are just deciding which order we want them in and are fighting to the death over it. Edgy lost an eye!

We'll hopefully have the final decision up on Wednesday once we've mulled the entries over. Then we'll all go into an arena armed with makeshift weapons and hunger-games our way to a proper decision!

So, yeah. Expect our final decision on Wednesday as well as the lifeless bodies of two admins. It'll be epic!

This may also be my final post. Edgy wants revenge for his eye.

5167614 Ye shall be missed. Unless of course mine made it to the final three and you're opposing it getting first, cause... then all my luck goes to the guy supporting me.

Ooh, now this is what I call a cutthroat contest! Even the admins are murdering each other.

5168347 As I often say to my uni buddies: If you don't want to murder your team-mates in violent and brutal fashion at least once, then you don't care enough about the project.

5168849 I tried something similar with my students, but my director told me that I was missing the point of study groups.

5168911 I actually make a point of planning out how I'd murder my friends and team-mates as a sort of mental exercise. It's also great for managing stress!

I was actually a bit alarmed when I found out how easy it'd be to murder me. Turns out I was one of the easy ones!

5168939

I was actually a bit alarmed when I found out how easy it'd be to murder me. Turns out I was one of the easy ones!

Booby trapped bottle of scotch?

5169846 Almost!

One of my friends lives on the other side of uni campus. Our campus has a really deep lake. My friend could easily incapacitate me with booze and then, on my way home, use the cover of darkness to drown me. There are no cameras in that part of campus and no witnesses, and my tendency to sometimes disappear for days at a time means he could get away scot free by the time people got seriously worried about my absence!

5169904 So dark and macabre...
As for Edge... Sauron had one eye, and he did quite well for a while... O:)

Hm. Now that this little "incident" has been dealt with, I am entrusted with the power to declare our judging results. Debates were heated, and we needed quite a lot of time to come to an agreement. Let me reveal our decision.

In 3rd place EX AEQUO :

The Great Equestrian Ball Scramble, by Thought Prism

Devil With The Silver Tongue, by Jigsaw

To be perfectly honest, The Great Equestrian Ball Scramble appeared to us as if an abomination had monstruous intercourse with Shelob. But as it turned out, appearance can be deceiving. Much to our surprise, we came across a fun, well-rythmed and quite original crossover that entertained us greatly, and that got all three of us curious with what would happen next, just for the sake of laughing at the ridiculous setting and situations that would be caused by it. The reason we didn't put it higher comes from a certain stiffness in the story-telling, as well as some rushed transitions and quite an expeditive start.

The Devil With The Silver Tongue catched our gaze for its interesting and well told story and setting, about a Conman (or Conpony, I guess ?). Through efficient and punchy writing, intriguing characterization, and interesting tone, it gained points with all three of us. As to why it's not higher on the podium lies within its general structure and the fact that, despite sympathetic, the main character didn't manage to really have us ask ourselves what would happen next. Definitely a great read, however.

In 2nd place :

Youth Group, by The Hat Man

This is where the debate becomes interesting. We had a long-winded talk about what story would take 2nd and 1st place. For the longest time, we could not agree on it. This story features everything you want in a good piece of reading : Pacing, Characterization, a Premice that had us hyped and pumped to find out more. And it's precisely THIS point that had us debating so hard I lost and eye and Haph lost... more important bits. Whilst we all agreed on the undeniable quality of this story, we had a hard time agreeing on the main trope it was using. AKA "parents are gone, what will the childs do now ?". We've all seen it somewhere, we've all read something about it. Whilst it is extremely well used in this one, and has us asking for more at the end of it, both Verbose and I felt that, by this simple choice, the story had lost most its attractivness. Less with Verbose, but very strongly in me. I honestly said to myself : "Not again, please" as I discovered the story. Whilst I was very pleasantly surprised and entertained, the fact that it spawned such a reaction outta me only reinforced my choice of not having it score first. Haph, on the other hand, had this one run for winner.

In his eyes, the story takes a worn out trope and turns it into an extremely enjoyable read, with great characters, and left his curiosity for the follow-up to the story unsatiated. I'm sure he will explain more later on in a blog post he'll do or something. Because he does that. We probably all will, to be honest, so keep yer eyes peeled for it.

And finally...

In 1st place :

O Blessed Night, by Daffadah (Password : unfinished)

Now this was an amazing read for both Verbose and I. Instantly, the first few lines had us ask ourselves questions about the what and the how of this world, as the well written lines unfolded in front of our eyes, and the interesting characters played out this macabre tragedy. The premices are surprising, well played on, and attract the eye. You will quickly find yourself rooting for these ponies we love as they face horrors and challenges on a daily (or rather, nightly) basis. I certainly didn't lose my time reading this, and it had me panting for MOAR ! MOAR AND MOAR ! at the end. Which is exactly what the contest asked you authors to do ! Isn't the world marvelous ? Such a great coincidence ! BWAHAHAHAHAA ----

Hum. As I was saying, there was quite a bit of debate about this one, as the tone and VERY HARSH transitions between characters displeased Haph greatly. Whilst we all heard his argument, he could not hold his own against the onslaught brought by me and Verbose upon him, and finally agreed to this choice, as we used the extremely sophisticated and terribly dangerous rule of "this story has two votes and the other has one". A marvellous wonder of mathematics, logic and science, really.

As such, this story wins the "An Elevator Pitch" contest, by The HazMat group. His author is encouraged to contact Haph as quickly as possible.

I would like to thank all our 11 participants. Your stories were amazing to read, and it was a pure pleasure dealing with them and firing up jolly debates and heated arguments. I hope we will see you all, and more, for the next one.

Edgy, out.

As a personnal note to this, I would like to put

Anima Creation Of A Princess, by PortalJumper

As my personnal honorable mention. Whilst the story tries its very best to kill any interest you might have for it (Pony Creator Picture, Terrible Choice of Title and Stiff Description), if you take the time to look above those details, you will find a compelling, agreable and very interesting story. All its characters shine brightly, and I cannot wait to read more of it.

The reason it didn't score was that it didn't spark the interest of Haph as much as mine, and Verbose had a more mixed feeling about it, depiste the fact he was very intrigued by it as well.

5171917 Yer fergot to link ter the winning story, yer numpty!

Regarding how to get dem sweet steam prizes for the first and second place winners: do send me a PM and we can discuss me getting what you want over steam or some other suggestion you would like to put forth.

Congrats to the winners.

5171917
5172022

Oh wow, I wasn't expecting to place.

*reads reasoning*

Aaaand my biggest ongoing problem as an author strikes again: rushed pacing. Also, 'stiffness' apparently. I suppose that's what I get for only putting in like three hours of work.

5171917
5172022
All right, I'm really glad I took 2nd! While it would have been nice to take home the whole enchilada, I'm glad my entry was so favorable, especially compared to so many other great stories by everyone else.

This story features everything you want in a good piece of reading : Pacing, Characterization, a Premice that had us hyped and pumped to find out more. And it's precisely THIS point that had us debating so hard I lost and eye and Haph lost... more important bits. Whilst we all agreed on the undeniable quality of this story, we had a hard time agreeing on the main trope it was using. AKA "parents are gone, what will the childs do now ?". We've all seen it somewhere, we've all read something about it. Whilst it is extremely well used in this one, and has us asking for more at the end of it, both Verbose and I felt that, by this simple choice, the story had lost most its attractivness.

I'm glad that overall it made a good impression, but that's a very fair criticism. I realized that the concept had been done before, but I often do well taking old ideas and making them seem fresh and new. Thus, I decided that it was the best idea I could think of before the deadline, and I best run with it.

Haph, on the other hand, had this one run for winner.
In his eyes, the story takes a worn out trope and turns it into an extremely enjoyable read, with great characters, and left his curiosity for the follow-up to the story unsatiated.

Aw, glad you had this story's back, Hap! But I can't complain about winning 2nd place, and "O Blessed Night" is a very deserving story as well. (But expect no mercy next contest, Daffadah! ) This was a fun contest and I look forward to the next.

I'll PM you soon with my request, Hap. Thanks again to the judges!

5171917
5172022
Simply for the sake of those who pay more attention to their news feed than group forums/groups dashboard, shouldn't the winners be announced in a new thread?

Wow! O Blessed Night won! I want to thank Haph and the other judges for having provided such an interesting premise for the contest, and for all the effort they put into it! The contest also succeeded in getting a lot of very good entries that were a great read! It's an honor to be considered part of such good company!

Man, I had a lot of doubts about this story, and the comments on the review post above certainly show that the judges noticed! I chewed the most fingernails on the mechanism I used to set the tone of the story: the immersion of the narrative in each character's PoV was meant to create a more visceral, intense emotional investment from the reader, but it did cause rather jarring transitions - as noted by the judges. In the end, I decided to run with the format as I felt it amplified the very stark and desperate atmosphere I wanted to create. I would love feedback from readers on whether they think this approach was effective, and any other feedback folks would like to provide.

Thanks again to Haph, Mac and Verbose for hosting the contest!

Daf,

PS – Iet's my intent to publish the story as soon as I have artwork for it. I'm currently finishing up chapter three and hope to go to a regular biweekly update schedule thereafter.

5172547

You're right. I will definitely see it done.