Yeah, you heard that right. This blog is about The Friggin' Lunbra contest. I'm sorry that it ended the way it did, without anything ever getting judged. (I still learned a lot for a potential second contest.) A lot happened to keep things from getting results, including a lot of real life issues taking control of what I was up to and the judges. It's a long time past any point for results, or at least any super official results and prizes. So, I'm super sorry about that.

Honestly, this is part of the reason I'm glad there weren't any cash prizes and grand give-away type stuff, because it would have been absolutely horrible if this had happened and that had been the case. I mean, I would have tired to not let that happen if there had been cash and stuff, but y'know.

Eh.

Anyway, I realized that because of the sort-of secrecy of the judging, there was literally no feedback given to the authors whatsoever. This is not a nice thing, and I'm hoping this blog will fix that. I'll be tossing out a few screenshots and stuff from the judging chat and whatever else held any semblance of what results might have looked like to the authors who contributed entries, from the keyboards of the judges themselves.

However, no final results ever ended up being cobbled together, hence there only being unofficial screenshots from stuff. And I wouldn't even consider that complete, because I'm literally only pulling up as much as I can find from chat logs. (And yes, the logs aren't exactly recent, so it might not be much?)

However, in place of the lack of both logs and feedback, I would like to offer reviews of each story to make up for that, and whatever I might of placed them as (roughly) had I been a judge (however I'm biased af and stuff which is obviously part of the reason there were, y'know, judges). I guess if you wanted to, you could consider those the official results.

So, a reminder: the prompt which writers had to work with was 'An Unexpected Meeting' and they could use it as they wished to create an E or T story that had words people could read with their eyes. The things they would be judged on were the usage of the prompt, grammar, originality, and characterization/romance.

Screenshots and reviews are below the break. My reviews will be entirely just... my thoughts and critique of the story, rather than anything with a rubric. Especially when it comes to grammar, I don't usually comment on the technical skill. Sorry.

E-rated slice of life romance with King Sombra? That in itself is a bit unexpected, but hardly unwelcome. This story takes a straightforward approach to the prompt: having Sombra, the narrator, bump into Princess Luna one day, and they strike up a bond. Friendship leads to crushes and hayfries, which then leads to romance of the heterosexual horse sort in cute, short, fluff-with-a-plot.

But what's with that AU tag? Well, the story takes place in an alternate universe where a number of things never happened: Nightmare Moon and Sombra enslaving the empire are two examples. This isn't actually introduced in the story itself, not much, really. An author's note is all that clarifies the setting. Which isn't the best choice.

So, things that fluffysam did right: giving Sombra a unique and engaging voice in his narration, as well as good chemistry with Luna. There's a lot of natural dialogue in here and a sweet and fluffy romance. Pacing for the story is mostly smooth, and largely suited for a story of its length. If you want some sweet fluff with a unique pair, here's a story for you. So, what are the gripes with the story? Not anything really damning. The setting should have been clearer through textual details, even if they were just small nods at things being different or revealed through dialogue. There also should certainly be more of this AU! There were many little places where fluffysam could have probably stuck a bit more, whether it was just a touch of exposition or some peek at the world they've created. This is the shortest entry when it didn't actually need to be, though the shape its currently is far from bad, and it makes for a nice read.

Also, another detail is a bit odd in it: towards the end, it is revealed that Sombra has been writing the story as part of his memoirs. It nicely concludes the story, but does shed an odd light on things: why is it called a memoir if he's not exactly a grand king, and reads closer to a diary? Why didn't the author using the many formatting thingos FimFic provides to help give the story the look of a diary/written thing of some sort, or maybe offer headings for entries and such? This, and other things could have helped foreshadow the nature of the story.

Conclusion: Well worth the read, and places as the honorable mention.

Let me say two things outright: this was my personal favorite story of the entries, and second... it uses comic Sombra (but just barely) and makes him work. I'm not sure that you properly understand the gravity of that either, blog-reader. The MLP comics are a jumbled mess of soft canon that more or less have the skill of the average fanfiction writer, except they're professional comic writers. They're almost like a fandom in themselves, giving birth to flimsy characterizations, questionable storytelling, worldbuilding that feels like it was derived from mad-libs, unbelievable romances/ship teases, relentless fan-pandering, many a needless/groan-worthy pop culture reference, and backstories that would have garnered disgust even from me when I was a little wee Ice. (Excuse the fact that I was a picky child.)

They're all the vapid sugar-high type weekend cartoon gags with none of the actual fun that MLP simply isn't. (And the art is okay, I guess?)

Needless, to say, the comics are not really very good, and rightfully ignored by a lot of artists and writers in the fandom. And yes, I've read quite a few myself: FIENDship is Magic editions of Sombra, the Sirens, and Tirek; the return of Chrysalis; Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair; and the Shining Armor and Cadance one. Those, are at least the ones that I remember reading in full. There's no doubt a couple others, and then some I've only read parts of.

The comics have given a lot of odd characterizations and more to the fandom, and the best known is probably the relentlessly dorky Shining Armor one with pony D&D.

But this story was something else! It successfully manages to write Luna and Sombra in an established relationship and oh my god it is adorable. Both Luna and Sombra are very well-characterized and realized horses in love. Sombra is a spectacular and wonderful grump who has a reasonable dislike of the holidays, especially horse!Christmas, something I can relate too so very much, and he has understandbly also not really heard of it that much. Luna is fun-loving and understanding, with wisdom to share. There's cute pony carols and Luna who seeks to show Sombra a great Hearth's Warming, not to prove him wrong, but because she wants him to be happy. In the end, Sombra is able to find a part of the season he enjoys, with help and comfort from Luna. The chemistry between them is fantastic shit, yo.

The only real critique I have for this is 'Hearth's Warming' is called 'Heart's Warming' at times AND OH MY GOD WHY IS THERE NOT MORE.

Conclusion: SECOND PLACE, BITCHES! (And my personal favorite!)

When you're having problems with love, who is the pony to talk to? In this story, it's Luna, and there's a reason for that. This spectacular story was unfairly downvoted, and it is mostly probably because of the inclusion of Flash Sentry, but fallen starr manages to weave together an incredibly mature themes about romance with two romances: that of Twilight and Flash, and historically of Luna and Sombra. There's also friendship and wisdom to be had from this story, too.

Twilight wants a perfect relationship, or 'fairytale bliss' as the title says, and through dreams and with hard-won wisdom, Luna tells her about the unexpected meeting she had with King Sombra in the past, one that leads to them falling deeply in love. And yet, as mush as Luna and Sombra love one another AND FALLEN STARR WANTS TO HURT MY HEART it doesn't stop Sombra, Luna's light in a gloomy time, start doing some not-so-good things and such.

With Twilight's tale in the present, and Luna's in the past, this is a fine story that features realistic relationship talks, a really melancholy air about Luna even as the story ends oh my god poor girl, unexpected dream meetings also, down to earth stuff, lots of feelings, perfectionist Twilight, and a lot to take away. There's Lunbra in there, and gosh I'll always wish for more Lunbra in anything (this included), but there's more too.

Conclusion: This one would easily take first place.

Horizon is a changeling and a fantastic writer. He brings some absolutely good shit, like Three Letters, Thou Goddess, The Last Dreams of Pony Island, and some other things I would make hard copies of just so I could try to cram them down someone's throat and scream at them loudly to read them all, as I would with my own stories, as they died in my arms like a fucking coward who can't take no shit. Oh, and you can totally quote me on that, I guess. (Needless to say, there's not many writers that can get that kind of a response from me.)

But that's not to say that there's pieces of his I'm more on the fence about, and those would be things like You Remind Me of You and Queen of Clubs. Though, what I'm not on the fence about is the cover art. Good shit. 👌

What Queen does right is dare to put forth many original ideas at a gripping breakneck pace with deliciously bizarre tragedy. The prose is engaging, and it's quite the thriller. The prompt was juggled cleverly enough, but the title is even cleverer. I found myself enjoying it for those things... but there's some glaring flaws with it too. This story is like covering yourself with glitter and body paint and other fine outlandish things and going to a cool party: you're original! you're noticed! damn that's pretty unique, huh?

But you're also naked, and sorry to break it to you, story, but I don't think your metaphorical friend wanted indecent exposure at their party. Not cool.

Basically, a lot of the things that make Queen a good thing, aren't really as good when all that pain is scrubbed away, and glitter is (mostly) removed from every orifice.

This is to say that a lot of the good things aren't solid enough to keep this ship (no, not the horse-ship, like the story itself) from being half-sunk and the floor is all gross and wet and stuff.

There's a lot of wasted potential, which isn't something I say about many stories.

So, what is it that brings this story down?

The first thing is the setting. There's only about two places in the story, and that's not really a problem. The first is a gothic club run by a mysterious changeling called Loveless, and while out of context, the scenes at Loveless' club are pretty nice... in context, they're not so much. This is supposed to be a historical story, and while the exact 'historical' and many setting qualities of MLP can waver, this club would be more fitting for modern Equestria, and it just... flops in historical Equestria because it is not historical in basically any way in a setting that indirectly demands some adherence to that term. With the concept of 'Gothic' things (even if it isn't quite as we know them now) existing for centuries, there was so much idea fodder that could have been put to use with some research.

Instead, it's modern goth clubbing.

And the second setting? High school. Not a historical school, or a school with magic flairs or anything. Just high school. So there's a bucket of high school drama just dumped all over this, and it doesn't fit. At some point, there's a reference to Luna (yes, she goes to this high school in the Crystal Empire) and Celestia getting privately taught, and it's infinitely more interesting than the bland high school.

Luna is alright in the story, but that's about all that can be said for her. She's a depressed teenager, or one going through a rough time in her life, and that's understandable. With the Dark and Tragedy tags, I did expect something a little more remarkable going on, especially considering that eventually Nightmare Moon would be a thing. What I did like was that for her own conflict, she does say outright that she does not hate Celestia, even if she doesn't get along with her or like her older sister that much. So, what we get is Luna going through a hard phase in her life.

I'm not going to delve into Sombra that much, or at least not him as a character, because he's a weird complicated part of the story where I could probably write a full review on/something. What I will say is that for the most part, he does appear underwhelmingly normal, and there's an interesting twist with him, as well as a few things coupled with the revelation towards the end he is a developing sociopath of some kind.

But here's probably the biggest problem for the story: the romance. You're probably wondering how it could be a problem. There's a romance tag. This is a romance contest.

So what's the problem with the romance?

There isn't any.

None.

Nada.

Zero.

Zilch.

Luna is grateful that Sombra helps her at a point, but doesn't really paying attention to him after thanking him. Sombra decides he wants Luna after like three minutes of looking at her ass and deciding she's hard to get. But mostly looking at her ass.

And that's honestly all that really drives him. He's horny.

That's it.

That's all.

He's just horny.

There's no romance in the story that is entered in a romance contest, just one very horny teenager, and another who is slightly less horny and has sibling issues and is going through a phase.

...So I'm not really sure why it was that this was entered in a shipping contest if the protagonist is just really horny?

Yeah. Dunno. Forget everything else about the story, this is kind of a big failure on anything entered in a shipping contest. Yes, the writing is technically sound, but there's absolutely no chemistry. Which is sort of the point.

However, what could really shape this story better is well, if the story kept going. The story leaves off on a cliffhanger of Point A and the inevitable outcome of what happen in the show is Point B. There's a lot of potential to use this story as a wild first few chapters to a downward spiral of a tragedy, and make something later in a hypothetical continuation give more depth to the first few chapters/present story in hindsight. I'd actually be hyped for that.

This story has ambition, and that's always a really great thing to have, and on the surface it was beautiful grade-A Ice Star bait, but in the end I got something kind of... bizarre. And not like 'my mind is blown by everything you've done with the story bizarre' but 'holy crap that was painted just to look like a real food thing and instead it's fucking packing foam and what the fuck listen I'm sure it's great packing foam but why did you do that'.

That's actually happened to me before.

Conclusion: Bronze medal, baby.

6551910
Ah, thank you! I missed this when it first got posted (my unread notifications are a monstrous nearly-four-digit trash fire right now), but I really appreciate you going to the effort to offer feedback (and closure) for the contestants. Congratulations to the (other) winners, in particular fallen starr for the gold!

With that said ...

You spend a lot of time unpacking your reaction to my story. As such, I feel somewhat obligated to pick up the other side of that dialogue.

Let me first assure you, because you went to quite some length to justify your opinions: I'm not offended by your critique. There's a few reasons for that. One is the fundamental one: At heart, you have an absolute right to your reaction to the story (as every reader does to every text); even where we disagree on the story, it's just a disagreement over what the text invokes and not a referendum on my worth as an author. More importantly, you've clearly given it a lot of thought and sourced your arguments in the text itself -- and even if a reader doesn't like the product, that level of engagement is a high compliment to the story. But most importantly, you're not saying anything I haven't myself thought!

I don't know if you ever read my meltdown over in the Writeoffs when it medaled. I simply didn't understand how people were connecting with it, and for the same reason: when I looked at my own story, all I saw was an insane trainwreck of moods, smashing the ludicrousness of gothic slam poetry and stock high-school drama against the seriousness of a villain origin story ending in the protagonist committing literal murder and arson. It was explicitly set a thousand years ago but every setting was ripped straight out of modern life. It was a love story with no love*. what the hell did people see in it

And I think what's happening is, many people are willing to spot a story the most ridiculous things if it goes on to do something cool with it. I mean, look at Pokemon: young children are being sent out with little jail bubbles in order to enslave literal deities and make them fight each other in order to earn costume jewelry. i mean what. The instant you stop and think about it, it's beyond insanity, but if you roll with the premise there's a heck of a power fantasy in it, along with some intriguing interpersonal dynamics. I submit that Queen of Clubs is powered by the same refuge in audacity: of course a thousand-year-old empire has stock high schools (with locker-filled hallways!) and goth clubs! Because that's how the story rolls, and it would be a very different story if it tried to make sense!

There's a point at which the triumph of style over narrative creates stories that can't be told as effectively any other way. Take, for another example, Yuri Kuma Arashi: it's a lesbian high school romance in which half of the main characters are disguised bears there to murder and eat the human students, and the entire pace of school life is governed by alarms that go off whenever the giant wall keeping bears from humanity gets breached. It's an amazingly trippy anime. It's also a heavy-handed metaphor for the disruptive influence of alternative sexuality on teenage life, but it wouldn't gel without the abstraction of that metaphor. I'm still not entirely certain what metaphor Queen of Clubs is reaching for, but it's drawing from that same well of deliberate juxtaposition with the impossible. In-your-face magical realism.

This is not to argue that you should have approached it that way, mind. Just an attempt at after-the-fact analysis. You didn't, and the story didn't work for you. None of the people in love with the story have so much as mentioned the ludicrousness of the setting. Neither approach is right or wrong; one just keeps certain story elements in the blind spot.

And that's honestly all that really drives him. He's horny.

That's it.

That's all.

He's just horny.

There's no romance in the story that is entered in a romance contest ...

This is the other thing I wanted to specifically respond to, and I've got two unrelated (and semi-contradictory?) answers for it.

I'll get the rule-quoting one out of the way first:

4) Your story must incorporate a romantic relationship between the characters (Princess Luna/Nightmare Moon and King Sombra) in some fashion, as long as it isn't in any way abusive (I shouldn't have to put that here, but I did). That means if you want, an unrequited romance is allowed, as long as it is given large amounts of focus/depth or the plot of the story. Duh. Star-crossed/tragic romances are also allowed, in case you needed that made clear, just as long as they don't break anything else in this rule. It is probably best, though, if you do a requited romance. This is a shipping contest!

1)
I want to be very clear that I was submitting a story which I intended, in good faith, to conform to the rules. Unrequited and tragic romances were both specifically called out as acceptable. And while it seems like you might have been using "romance" in the sense of "a building emotional connection between two parties", by explicitly okaying unrequited and tragic romances you're denying that that's a necessary component. The actual dictionary definition of romance is "a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love"; whatever it is* that Paint is feeling, it drives him to extremes, thrills him, forces him out of his comfort zone, helps him unearth both who his crush is and who he is.

I will die on the hill of this story being a legitimate romance.

If* the core of what drove Paint was lust, as you argue, then that doesn't make it any less so. (And, frankly, dude, have you seen teenagers in love? Paint being driven solely by lust is, like, the single most realistic thing about this story.)

That said, there's a third thing I highlighted in the rules quote: you were also quite clear about what you wanted. And I didn't write to that! You are 100% justified in calling me out as "whatever this is, it wasn't what I was actually looking for in the judging." That is 110% legitimate. And I make no claim that this deserves any placement other than what you gave it.

2)
You've probably noticed me littering this comment with asterisks. Because I've waffled quite a bit on the motivations driving Paint. But, speaking as the author, there is a single, definitive answer to that question -- and while there are several ways I tried to draw reader attention away from it so I could use it as a sledgehammer later on, I led with it right in the first paragraph of the story:

When the dark alicorn introduced herself to the Imperial Academy by making a rude hoof gesture at the entire class, Drying Paint knew it was love at first sight.

See what I did there? He doesn't get attracted by Luna's swaying ass (even though he gets distracted by it immediately afterward). Paint falls in love with her act of rebellion. He falls in love with the idea of Luna -- and what she represents about his potential to break out of the system mistreating him.

There is a second, very deliberate tell for this late in chapter 2. Paint tells Shot that he has to go back to The Loveless because it's the only place Luna is truly herself -- "she's never smiled anywhere else". And yet there's a major emotional beat at the end of Chapter 1 when he compliments her in the school hallway:

Luna said nothing. But for the first time since she'd arrived at the Imperial Academy, she smiled. Really, this time, smiled. It was faint, and guarded, but unmistakable.

Paint's heart leapt, and fluttered, and the adrenaline began to tickle at his throat again.

The end of chapter 2 is this story's single most crucial moment of unreliable narration.

I submit that Paint's tragic flaw in this story -- the trait leading to his downfall -- is that he never actually consciously realizes what he's chasing. He continues to pursue Luna even after Loveless hooks him with the ability for him to become that which he chases. He reinvents himself into the pony he wants to be, thinking that it's for her, and Luna responds to that -- so he becomes completely unmoored when he finally realizes she never cared about him in the first place. And the only thing he can do is continue to blindly rebel, even when it's now against a gentle hoof of friendship trying to help him through his pain.

So is Paint in love with Luna? Only in a twisted way. He's in love with her shadow, so to speak. But he spends the story chasing her, so it is very centrally about their relationship, and the way it both builds and disintegrates, in the finest tragic romance tradition.

Anyhow.

This was a lot of words and a lot of analysis trying to frame the things that upset you about the story. Not to challenge your emotions, but to hopefully expose the choices that led to the metaphorical indecent exposure -- and to gently argue that, while they may not have had the effect you wanted, that this wasn't a case of something as disrespectful as unwanted nudity.

More like, maybe, you said "It's time for the wildest bachelor party you can have without breaking any laws! and by the way my pastor is gonna be there too" and I took your first sentence a little too literally and hired a male model to dance around him in a thong.

Best,
h

6589690
Ah, I didn't expect a reply to this after so long! Heck, I didn't even know if anyone read this. So, time to dig into it.

I really do hope that people were satisfied by this feedback, since it was all I could think to offer. I'm glad someone thinks so, since you're the second author I heard back from.

First off, congrats on the SA feature and worldbuilding win! Even if it's a bit belated, you have quite the accolades for this little tale. I guess it's the cult hit to a certain winged-principal blockbuster? Or maybe it's just me who thought of it like that.

Anyway, time to butcher your reply (but very nicely).

You spend a lot of time unpacking your reaction to my story. As such, I feel somewhat obligated to pick up the other side of that dialogue.

Yesyesthankyou! I like hearing back from people too!

Let me first assure you, because you went to quite some length to justify your opinions: I'm not offended by your critique.

Thank you! I would hope that no one took any offense to anything I said. I spent a lot of time mulling it over. Also, searching through logs. That too.

More importantly, you've clearly given it a lot of thought and sourced your arguments in the text itself -- and even if a reader doesn't like the product, that level of engagement is a high compliment to the story. But most importantly, you're not saying anything I haven't myself thought!

This is all very good to know! I had hoped that with how I did go back to double check everything I remembered and take a dig at each story again on the hunt for details, that such effort would have paid off. I wanted any review to be true to the text that was actually submitted and not just another reviewers thoughts, and one without any feedback, no less. Knowing that you said something you thought yourself is half-amusing but also helpful, so hurrah!

I

don't know if you ever read my meltdown over in the Writeoffs when it medaled. I simply didn't understand how people were connecting with it, and for the same reason: when I looked at my own story, all I saw was an insane trainwreck of moods, smashing the ludicrousness of gothic slam poetry and stock high-school drama against the seriousness of a villain origin story ending in the protagonist committing literal murder and arson. It was explicitly set a thousand years ago but every setting was ripped straight out of modern life. It was a love story with no love*. what the hell did people see in it

I think I gave myself a sneak peek about something in it in the WriteOffs. I'm certain it might have just been the comments, but I don't recall a meltdown. Surprised reactions? Hmm. Not sure. Anyway, I think I can understand why this might have won: the prompt was 'true colors' and that was used very, very well. I can't speak for the other entries, since I don't remember any that made it to FimFic, or if they were labelled as such. However, I'd say this one skillfully used 'true colors' in multiple ways across different characters, themes, and settings. Yes, the setting was rather bland aside from the club, but the emotion was done spectacularly. I stand by saying that this is kind of a cult hit among your blockbusters, and I found it to be an enjoyable story, too. It's harder to find risk on FimFic these days, and it does have many things I like to see in a story (and I'm not talking about the Lunbra).

And I think what's happening is, many people are willing to spot a story the most ridiculous things if it goes on to do something cool with it. I mean, look at Pokemon: young children are being sent out with little jail bubbles in order to enslave literal deities and make them fight each other in order to earn costume jewelry. i mean what. The instant you stop and think about it, it's beyond insanity, but if you roll with the premise there's a heck of a power fantasy in it, along with some intriguing interpersonal dynamics. I submit that Queen of Clubs is powered by the same refuge in audacity: of course a thousand-year-old empire has stock high schools (with locker-filled hallways!) and goth clubs! Because that's how the story rolls, and it would be a very different story if it tried to make sense!

I think that part of what works for things like Pokemon is that the setting isn't serious. Forget how avid people can be about it, and no offense if that happens to be you, but at the end of the day Pokemon is purely action fun rooted in the Japanese cultural notion of compact-ness and also kaiju. I don't think it's ever pretended to be anything else. Also, I've never delved deep into Pokemon headcanon and in-franchise lore, but I'm sure someone has tried to cobble together why this Makes Sense.

Or Pokeballs are the real gods.

...Maybe I should stop before I go too far.

I did mention that I really liked the goth clubs in my commentary, and it was seriously a wonderful edition. However, I feel that parts of it were just a bit too on the modern side?

Pizzazz was on this story's side, it just feels like it maybe coulda used another round of thought/ironing out some parts. If you do write an expanded version or something I'll be guilty of trying to get to read it first.

There's a point at which the triumph of style over narrative creates stories that can't be told as effectively any other way. Take, for another example, Yuri Kuma Arashi: it's a lesbian high school romance in which half of the main characters are disguised bears there to murder and eat the human students, and the entire pace of school life is governed by alarms that go off whenever the giant wall keeping bears from humanity gets breached. It's an amazingly trippy anime. It's also a heavy-handed metaphor for the disruptive influence of alternative sexuality on teenage life, but it wouldn't gel without the abstraction of that metaphor.

I read this paragraph unsure how to feel. I remain unsure now, but also uncertain of what I've just read.

I'm still not entirely certain what metaphor Queen of Clubs is reaching for, but it's drawing from that same well of deliberate juxtaposition with the impossible. In-your-face magical realism.

Not all writing needing a metaphor aside, what QoC did remind me of was how well it captured a lot of teenage emotion (or rather, a great emotional overdrive) as well as shedding an odd light on depression (through Luna) and the path of juvenile delinquency (through Sombra) and how it can show who you can become. Or that's how I've best thought of it right now? It's a very youth-rooted tragedy, and the tragedy is a very solid one.

You didn't, and the story didn't work for you. None of the people in love with the story have so much as mentioned the ludicrousness of the setting.

I actually found the story good! It's just not without some flaws. This story is The Lost Boys of FIMFiction. You can quote me on that, or anything I've said about the story, really. And I love that this was done as a serious story too, no matter how absurd it can be. It's just that as absurd elements would have been very well reworked. Poetry is good, but the chance to show an older school and give parts of the gothic club a spin would have cast a very haunting, more rooted kind of feel to this, and I feel that had that been done, you would have had a lot less to worry about. Also, I eat up historical stories.

However, I would say that the meat of this discussion falls on this point, yes?

The one below, that is.

I want to be very clear that I was submitting a story which I intended, in good faith, to conform to the rules. Unrequited and tragic romances were both specifically called out as acceptable. And while it seems like you might have been using "romance" in the sense of "a building emotional connection between two parties", by explicitly okaying unrequited and tragic romances you're denying that that's a necessary component. The actual dictionary definition of romance is "a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love"; whatever it is* that Paint is feeling, it drives him to extremes, thrills him, forces him out of his comfort zone, helps him unearth both who his crush is and who he is.

I will die on the hill of this story being a legitimate romance.

And I agree more-or-less entirely with what you've said here. There wasn't a single entry that actually broke the rules. However, this is where QoC as weirdly delightful as it is had something that was harder to refute, if you'll allow me a metaphor a bit later into this post.

If* the core of what drove Paint was lust, as you argue, then that doesn't make it any less so. (And, frankly, dude, have you seen teenagers in love? Paint being driven solely by lust is, like, the single most realistic thing about this story.)

I'm going to partially agree with this here. Teenagers are hormone machines. Like, hormones in general, to be clear. And the emotional aspect of them being moody little devils was done so well here.

But as horny as (most) teenagers can be, there can still be silly sweethearts, first heartbreaks, affection, etc. So it's not the whole thing. And this was a romance/shipping contest.

That said, there's a third thing I highlighted in the rules quote: you were also quite clear about what you wanted. And I didn't write to that! You are 100% justified in calling me out as "whatever this is, it wasn't what I was actually looking for in the judging." That is 110% legitimate. And I make no claim that this deserves any placement other than what you gave it.

There was something unrequited, that's for sure! I guess the meat of this is still more relevant to a different quote. Hrm.

See what I did there? He doesn't get attracted by Luna's swaying ass (even though he gets distracted by it immediately afterward). Paint falls in love with her act of rebellion. He falls in love with the idea of Luna -- and what she represents about his potential to break out of the system mistreating him.

There is a second, very deliberate tell for this late in chapter 2. Paint tells Shot that he has to go back to The Loveless because it's the only place Luna is truly herself -- "she's never smiled anywhere else". And yet there's a major emotional beat at the end of Chapter 1 when he compliments her in the school hallway:

And all this is correct. However, that doesn't really explain how it got third, and now you must be very confused, so I'll drop it here.

'Love at first sight' is the ultimate way of saying characters noticed one another. There is an attraction to something. Is it physical? Emotional? Some kind of allure is there, and it's how things progress from there that tells the reader if there's going to be a relationship (maybe!) or if Character A really, really thinks Character B has a nice ass.

There was something very nice about how Paint observed this, and it was one of my favorite parts of the story.

However, let's say that there were ten 'acts of attraction' Paint did in this story. Romantically-driven and sexually-driven.

Now let's make them all fruit.

Yes. That's right. They're all fruit now.

Paint loving Luna's gesture of rebellion that gets him to be allured by her and him noticing how she smiles are going to be apples.

Paint writing poetry to get Luna's attention will be a grapefruit.

The other eight are watermelons.

This story was like if Ice Star decided to host a fruit salad contest and you thought it would be good to make a salad. The only goal is to have multiple fruits in the salad as per the only rule and the very definition of a fruit salad.

So I end up with eight watermelons all chopped up, a grapefruit, and two apples.

(Story-wise, he's got three Horse Romance Things going on, basically.)

This is a fruit salad. There's no doubt about it. However, the ratios are skewed. I absolutely believe that this is a very legit fruit salad, it's just that if I eat this you can't tell me that I'm not going to be eating mostly watermelon.

This story is a very good tragedy and tale of intense attraction. There are some romantic gestures/feelings/actions/motives in it, hands down. But there's not enough throughout it that the watermelons don't end up overshadowing them. The way that the characters acted made it seem like there was indeed an emotional connection, it just didn't come across as very romantic attraction-wise and that there was a sort of one-sided disconnect born by what Luna and Paint really wanted. The romance seems to gradually fall away throughout the story, even at scenes that feel like such a thought should be happening on Paint's end. They're scattered throughout a tale so few and far between that they become easily overshadowed and it is hard to believe that the motivation exists at all when everything else, thought-wise, action-wise, and dialogue-wise just establishes Paint as very horny and he continues to go that route. The opening line was great, but even in chapter one, it almost feels like it just gets forgotten about, in a way.

I think this is a good story, it's just that it wasn't the best for a romance contest. I would recommend it to people, but as a thriller and a tragedy, and one very wild ride.

So is Paint in love with Luna? Only in a twisted way. He's in love with her shadow, so to speak. But he spends the story chasing her, so it is very centrally about their relationship, and the way it both builds and disintegrates, in the finest tragic romance tradition.

I'm not sure twisted romance really counts as what was sought by the contest, but I still stand on this being a good story. It was as well-established as I could make it that Sombra and Luna had to be in love, in some way, even if one didn't return it (as clearly stated) rather than one only being in love with the idea of the other. I don't think there's a single shipping contest on the site, to my knowledge, that ever had an entry like that. Paint has a fatal attraction, it just doesn't feel like a romantic one. (I also feel that Luna was only 'unattainable' to Paint because of his own emotional meltdown and inability to cope with some of the circumstances that he's facing, but that's just me!)

This was a lot of words and a lot of analysis trying to frame the things that upset you about the story. Not to challenge your emotions, but to hopefully expose the choices that led to the metaphorical indecent exposure -- and to gently argue that, while they may not have had the effect you wanted, that this wasn't a case of something as disrespectful as unwanted nudity.

More like, maybe, you said "It's time for the wildest bachelor party you can have without breaking any laws! and by the way my pastor is gonna be there too" and I took your first sentence a little too literally and hired a male model to dance around him in a thong.

I think it's clear that my metaphors always, always get out of hand.

Watermelons aren't bad or anything,
Ice