SF's "Write Your Butt Off!" Writing Competition XV - Voting Thread

[Sunwoo]

Welcome to the official voting thread for SF's "Write Your Butt Off!" Writing Competition. This thread will be reused for the voting phase future cycles. Future hosts, do not be shy in asking me or one of the mods to update and manage the polls once it is your turn.

Link to the original post.

There are a few rules for the voting phase. You may NOT vote for yourself, as that would defeat the purpose of a competition. You may not also ask people to vote for you, or rally up a bunch of people to vote for you either. Because I want to ensure that there are no suspicious characters voting, I will keep the polling system public. If future hosts have a better way to ensure integrity in voting systems, just let me know.

Entrants for Cycle I

Entrants for Cycle II

Entrants for Cycle III

Entrants for Cycle IV

Entrants for Cycle V

Entrants for Cycle VI

Entrants for Cycle VII

Entrants for Cycle VIII

Entrants for Cycle IX

Entrants for Cycle X

Entrants for Cycle XI

Entrants for Cycle XII

Entrants for Cycle XIII

Entrants for Cycle XIV

You may vote for your top Math.ceiling(n / 5) favorite entries, where n is the number of entrants. I will be checking the poll to make sure that people are not voting for more than two options or for suspicious activity. Happy voting!

* Math.ceiling is a function that takes a number, and if there's any sort of decimal after it, rounds it up. Here's the quick and dirty chart to determine how many votes each voter can cast:

Entries    Votes
2-5        1
6-10       2
11-15      3

etc.

Edited January 25, 2017 by eclipse
Character limit, and new voting~!

[Sunwoo]

Important Links

Cycle 1 Prompt
Cycle 1 Voting
Cycle 2 Prompt
Cycle 2 Voting
Cycle 3 Prompt
Cycle 3 Voting
Cycle 4 Prompt
Cycle 4 Voting

Cycle 5 Prompt

Edited June 13, 2015 by Sunwoo

[Sunwoo]

SF's formatting is being a real pain in the butt right now, and it has a tendency to eat quotation marks off the stories of people who have them. I'm going to try to reformat shit later in the morning. Apologies to people whose entries are affected by formatting issues.

[Magical Glace]

Are we allowed to provide reviews for other writers/reasons for choosing what we did in this thread?

[Anacybele]

Crazy, I ended up liking Glaceon and Florina/Loki's entries the best.

Why is this crazy? They use elements I normally dislike. In Glaceon's case, I don't like Soren or Zelda: The Wind Waker. In Florina's, I don't like horror, and her story felt like it with the weird noises. Yet, I ended up enjoying both anyway. That's saying something.

Yeah, big kudos to them!

Not surprised at who voted for me. lol

[Jedi]

This is really good for a first turn out. The choice was really difficult!

[Snowy_One]

I honestly bit off more than I could chew. I should have presented it in a diary-style format and, as a result, been able to flesh it out over several days of mounting tension.

Also, Loki, stop tailing me and get out of my house.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I know my entry is hurt by an abundance of dialogue compared to description... I still have trouble there despite how many years I've worked with Falchion1984, who is a MASTER at description. I just can't think of more to add to the description sometimes, and then later on I randomly think of more stuff. I now know a bunch more sentences I could've thrown into it. I hate that. >_<

I thought I came up with a good theme and message to get across though. "Pressuring people to do something they don't want to do is wrong" and all.

Oh yeah, what if we have a tie in the end for first place?

Edited March 30, 2015 by Anacybele

[blah the Prussian]

Gonna call it now that Loki is going to win. I honestly think the voting would be more effective if you could only vote for one entry, but that's just me.

[Anacybele]

I like the voting how it is now. I couldn't possibly choose between the two entries I voted for if I could only vote for one. ._.

It also allows for more people overall to get votes and recognition in the end.

[Magical Glace]

Gonna call it now that Loki is going to win. I honestly think the voting would be more effective if you could only vote for one entry, but that's just me.

You could follow rules and pick only two instead of Loki, Snowy, and myself...

It is pretty obvious Loki will win, for now anyway

[Shin]

I voted for the two entries I thought were the best. However if anyone wants some constructive criticism of their piece, send me a message and I'll be happy to oblige.

[Anacybele]

You could follow rules and pick only two instead of Loki, Snowy, and myself...

It is pretty obvious Loki will win, for now anyway

He did vote for three, didn't he? Yeah, that's against the rules. lol SANGYUL! :P

Yeah, I also think Loki is going to win. The voting might as well end now too.

I still only have one vote... But I was afraid of that. I guess I'm still not a good writer unless I have Falchion babying my stuff. Such a disappointment after how much I've learned from him. But I guess that's my own fault.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Anacybele

[Magical Glace]

If it makes you feel better, you were among the three I debated voting for

[Anacybele]

Really? Huh, I'm honestly surprised. But thanks, that does make me feel better. I mean, I never thought I was an amazing writer, I still have work to do to get there, but yeah. Thanks. :)

[blah the Prussian]

Wait, where did it say you could only vote for two? In any case, I'll cast my votes again. And don't feel too bad, Ana; I don't have any votes!

[Anacybele]

You may vote for your top TWO favorite entries. I will be checking the poll to make sure that people are not voting for more than two options or for suspicious activity. Happy voting!

Right here, at the very bottom of Sangyul's OP. :P

And yeah, a few people don't have any votes, that's true. :(

None of these entries were bad at all though, imo!

[blah the Prussian]

Wow. Fail, me. Fail. Whatever, I changed my vote number to 2.

[Sunwoo]

Are we allowed to provide reviews for other writers/reasons for choosing what we did in this thread?

Yes, and I highly encourage that too.

Oh yeah, what if we have a tie in the end for first place?

In the case of a tie, there will be a tiebreaker voting round that lasts an extra 24 hours between the entries that tied.

I was originally debating on whether to allow voters to pick their top 2 or 3 choices. But I felt that in this specific round, 2 choices would make people more careful with their votes while not locking them to only one entry. If we have competitions where we have a much greater turnout (like 12+), I think letting people vote for top 3 is reasonable, and if we have smaller turnouts (6 or less), then voting for only one entry is a better choice.

The voting cycle will end on Thursday, April 2 12:59:59 PM PST. The winner of this cycle will get until next Monday to set up the next week's competition and post the prompt (although the competitions won't truly begin until Monday). If for whatever reason the winner cannot host, their hosting duties will fall to the runner up.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Sunwoo

[Anacybele]

Yes, and I highly encourage that too.

Oh, that's cool! I already posted a comment on both the entries I voted for, but I'll write a proper review now. I'm not the best reviewer since I have trouble explaining things and figuring out to say, but I'll do my best.

For Glaceon's story, I thought it was very well written out and had a nice idea for a plot. I've always wanted Zelda and FE to crossover too. I see no grammatical or spelling errors anywhere either, and it's just an overall well-written story. The only critique I have would be to balance out the amount of description with dialogue a bit more. I feel like it has the opposite problem to my entry, where it has too much description instead of too much dialogue. :P But besides that, it's a great entry!

As for Florina/Loki's entry, my opinion is the same, it's very well written and has a nice idea for a plot. The dynamic between Kristy and Ian is awesome too, reminds me of me and my brother. lol The only thing I'd have liked to see is a real explanation of the strange noises. I was just so curious! Besides that, I see no real flaws at all, truth be told.

I've read all of the other entries too, of course, but this post would get really long if I put reviews of them all right here. I'll post them gradually. Dragoncat already got comments from me on hers anyway. I thought it was cute and funny, but suffered a similar problem to my story, where it lacks enough description. :P

In the case of a tie, there will be a tiebreaker voting round that lasts an extra 24 hours between the entries that tied.

I was originally debating on whether to allow voters to pick their top 2 or 3 choices. But I felt that in this specific round, 2 choices would make people more careful with their votes while not locking them to only one entry. If we have competitions where we have a much greater turnout (like 12+), I think letting people vote for top 3 is reasonable, and if we have smaller turnouts (6 or less), then voting for only one entry is a better choice.

The voting cycle will end on Thursday, April 2 12:59:59 PM PST. The winner of this cycle will get until next Monday to set up the next week's competition and post the prompt (although the competitions won't truly begin until Monday). If for whatever reason the winner cannot host, their hosting duties will fall to the runner up.

Ah, I see. That all works for me. :)

Edited March 30, 2015 by Anacybele

[Loki Laufeyson]

oh my gods why are people voting for me excuse me while i blush for days.

Im really digging on eclipse's ER drama there. Needs a bit more description, but i like the banter and the gore.

[Magical Glace]

Okay then~ In order of submission:

Ana: Like I said, your entry basically had my vote until the last submission day, when Clipsey and Loki posted theirs. I liked the characters, and I know firsthand how hard it is to live up to a relative that is generally considered better at... almost everything (though in my case, it's my younger sister, not a parent). You portrayed the main character's emotions quite well, and that, I feel, is the strongest point of this piece. I do think him randomly knowing the mercs personally despite Ike leaving at the end of FE10 is a bit weird, if he's going to leave them, chances are the kid won't know them. Just me though.

Julian: As you are a non-native speaker, I'm going to applaud your enthusiasm and your ability to communicate to me well enough that I could correct your grammar. It's a cute story, but does suffer a bit from it's broken nature and lack of detail in some instances.

Blah: An interesting concept... that effectively uses simplistic wording to get the point across. That is... a strength, and a flaw as well. I dunno. Just... something's missing from your piece, that final oomph in the phrasing.

Dragoncat: A cutesy bit of fluff, there isn't much more to it. It's simple, but it couldn't hold my attention as well as it could have.

Snowy: The story grabbed my attention... but it couldn't really keep it. Maybe it's just me being simple-minded, but I got distracted from this a bit too easily.

Farkas: I've never played Skyrim, so expect a bit of fandom blindness. It's a nice little narrative with great wording, I liked the characters, and I can't say much more because fandom blind.

Loki: I found this cute. I loved your way with words, it kept my attention, and like Ana said, the characters had a cute relationship. They do what siblings do best--argue--as well as my sister and I, and their relationship was a believable sibling bond. Good job!

Clipsey: Again, I'm totally fandom blind, but I liked this all the same. You really captured the intensity of an emergency room while still portraying the daily life of the protagonist. I liked it.

I can't give much in the way of criticism, since my style is... quite different from the others. I guess.

Should I spoiler this post, btw?

[Anacybele]

You could spoiler your post if you want, but I'm fine with it the way it is. It's not some annoying long wall of text or anything. :P

But thanks for the feedback! I should've explained a bit more on how Kael knows Ike's old friends, you're right... He doesn't know them that well yet, he's only really gotten to know their children at this point. Mist is the only GM he really knows much at all since she's his dad's sister and all. But Kael and Lalita decided they wanted to visit their parents' homeland and meet their friends and such. So they did just that. Sorry for not being as clear with that. It'll be much clearer when I write Kael, Dilan, and the other GM children I have in mind in a sequel to FE: Dawn of Darkness.

And my reviews for the rest of the entries:

MisterIceTeaPeach: This entry was the one about cats, wasn't it? I thought it was cute, though a bit confusing. I'm not a cat fan though, so I can't say that the story was really to my tastes, but hey, I found it cute anyway. :P This is a series of poems, right? This is what I got confused about, was where you were trying to go with the whole thing.

blah: I like the twist this one had in the end, but overall, I felt it was more or less just "this happened and then this happened and that's the story." I don't see much showing, rather than telling. Otherwise, it's not bad at all, really. I like a story that has twists later on. :)

Snowy_One and eclipse: I put these two here because I had the same opinion of both. Well-written, but I couldn't understand what was going on at all. This is probably due to me sucking at interpreting literature though. >_< And in the case of eclipse's story, I'm not big on ER drama. That's all personal taste though, I'm sure people who do like that kind of thing would love this.

Farkas: I liked this one because of the development we saw with the angry kid. I had some trouble pronouncing some of the words used here, but that's a very minor nitpick. :P The plot was nice overall, I just sadly didn't find it amazing. I'd have voted for this one if Florina/Loki hadn't posted her entry though.

[Snowy_One]

What was going on with mine was this.

The head of a local church (more of a chapel, but that's neither here nor there) has been serving in a relaxed, placated, role for a prolonged period of time. She has some skill as a healer though not a lot, but despite that she's become sort of the 'center' of the small town she's within due to her kind nature. A nature that's put to the test when a swarm of refugee's, each potentially capable of bringing mass-death, to her door. Refugee's from a nation that she's now at war with AFTER they arrived at her doorstep.

She's trying to make the right choices according to her relaxed nature. Letting her acolytes run off whenever they want without doing their job properly, not cracking down on the threat despite that she may, very well, lack the ability to find those infected, hiding the fact that they are now at war from the guards to protect the innocent when there may, very well, be spies in the refugee's; all while her only 'qualification' to lead is that her kind nature caused people to look up to her in times of peace.

Ultimately things got beyond her control, but I intentionally left the conclusion unwritten. Did she let the refugee's die, ensuring the survival of some over the people who may have had spies, had some who could have very well been infected, had gravely wounded her acolyte, but still had many innocent civilians within? Or did she choose to open the gate and let the innocent in, risking it all in the hope of saving them all? Whichever choice she made, it defied her church, so did she deviate from the road to accomplish a greater good, or was her choice made of personal self-interest and following the teachings of the church, which might have let herself and her acolytes be strong enough to ensure safety from the undead or at least cure her acolyte, were right?

The ending is up to the reader to take away their own conclusion.

[Anacybele]

I...think I understand some more. Still not entirely though. I'm not really sure why. This is so embarrassing... >_<