EllJee

One more very enthusiastic congratulations to all of the winners! And another big shout-out to everyone who entered. I thoroughly enjoyed browsing all of this! (I'm not sorry at all)

I figured the bike was at least a little intentional. I'm not sure there's a "regular" cosplay picture, so I think whatever your sense of artistic layout tells you to do is probably the right choice at the time. (And yeah, I thoroughly understand failed components and leaving them out due to money and other constraints.) Very glad to hear you're still working on it, though! It's definitely too good so far to toss.

In order, then. You're familiar with the old joke, right? How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Oh, just one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change. This is part of your hang-up. Yes, things are hard to change. For me, at least (and I won't burden the board with my own issues here), that's quite clear. But you won't ever change if you don't try. Why let your ideas grow beyond ideas? For their own merit. As far as finding a writer's circle goes, I should remind you of the difference between critique and criticism. Pointing out the flaws in a written work is not the same thing as attacking the writer, and suggesting concrete ways to improve is not the same thing as "I hated it, it sucked." Any writer's circle worth its members knows this. The entire idea of a writer's circle, or a workshop, is that everyone is like you: hoping to improve. Nobody should be looking down on anyone else. If they do, it's a problem with those members, not the idea of a writer's circle itself. Just find another one. And about tests... A grade is not validation for your work on a test or a justification of effort any more than it is a way to categorize students for the ease of administrative purposes. Grades are a fake award with no meaning given to a student so the school can keep getting money. (I'm a little bitter; can you tell?) Grades are the gold stars and trophies given to athletes no matter what team they're on. What's the value of a trophy? None, in and of itself. Athletes don't play their sport for the trophies--those are just there so they can earn MONEY playing their sport. No, they play their sport because they enjoy doing so--and they get good at it because that's what they spend their time doing. That's ALL they spend their time doing. It's a day job. Like professional musicians. Don't practice? Can't perform. If you're not writing because you like writing, then it's okay if you set it aside for now. But if you love writing? That's all the reason you need to keep going, and screw anyone who tells you not to just because your work doesn't satisfy some arbitrary criteria--including yourself and your own. XD

If I can interject as a reviewer... The thing about Flora, as characterized by that fic (and her supports), is that she doesn't really have the ability to quite control how broadly her power is applied; she can't just affect the food on the table all at once, unless that's all she's near. The Nohrian royals would notice the temperature in the room suddenly dropping significantly long before the food would have frozen (at 32° F or 0° C for just water; anything with any amount of salt, for example, would require an even lower temperature). Freezing something to the table would similarly require a level of condensation that's suddenly dropped to 32° F. The food might have bee frozen to the table in the fic; we don't know. The reason we don't know is that none of the Nohrians present (as they are portrayed as caring, to an extent) would have cared about the food once Flora's outburst made itself known. The narrative doesn't say that because it's not important to any of the characters--and therefore not to us. And it's not like the Ice Tribe DOES integrate; they stay secluded in their ice village, and the twins are political hostages as maids for Corrin; they're the only ones we see outside the Ice Tribe village. So far, that's all within the bounds of canon. Yes; it's Paralogue 1. Yes, you didn't have leeway to look further into the future for how Mozu behaves when she's already in the army. That's not the issue there, really; the issue I had, as I said, is that whatever narrative you ARE using resolves too neatly within the confines of the progression you're limited to. We don't even really have a hint of the future issues she'll be facing--which, given that we know she will, seems a little too important to leave out entirely. I'd be happy to offer a full markup of the thing using Track Changes, if you'd like to have that privately. For example: You didn't really discuss her "new, crippling fear of being alone." The paragraph that leads up to Mozu's “No! I have to fight!” is the closest we get to that, but what it tells me instead is that she has a favor to repay, and that she fears for Corrin's life. Not that she fears being left alone again. Which leads me right into: I've been trying to improve for much, much longer than nine years. Have I? Well, that's up for debate. Will I ever stop? Not really. @SpareTimeEntertainment nailed it; what's important isn't that you amaze people, or that you fit some objective standard of what "good" is; what's important is that you keep trying. And the only way to do that is to keep writing--and reading. Examine your style as compared to others to find concrete things they do that you like or that you do that you'd rather not do. Find a writer's circle, rather than focusing your hopes for critiques on the internet (where people are likely to be on either end of the perfect/it sucks spectrum, rather than trying to offer a proper critique). The single best piece of advice I have for my students has always been: Worry about the work, not the grade. In my own schooling, the work I'm most proud of has always been the work I tried my absolute best on. If that's an A (and there were a few)? I'm proud of that. If that's a C (and, yes, there were a few)? I'm proud of that too. The As I got from not trying? Those were the assignments I regret. I regret not investing everything I could. I regret not being the best I could at any given moment. Because expectations are only useful if they're reasonable. If they're too high OR too low, they don't help you grow the same way. If you strive for the best you can do in any given moment REGARDLESS of what anyone else says about your work, the quality (and the grade) will follow, with significantly less stress along the way. And if the grade isn't as great as it could have been? Why, then you're also better able to pick back up after it and be okay with what you got--knowing that it is, after all, just an arbitrary thing like all grades really are. And speaking of Virgil/Dante/Milton... This may be an appropriate time to say for those of you for whom it wasn't painfully obvious that I entered the FE7 Epic. And holy dang does it suck. I look at it and I see errors, failures, things I wished to include but didn't, things I had to include and was trying to avoid. I've a long, long way to go before I'm to the point where I'm satisfied with my work (since I doubt that will ever happen). This was an experiment on my part, since I'd never worked in dactylic hexameter for quite this long a piece before. Let this stand as evidence to what I'm talking about above. If you're curious as to the process of writing that thing, send me a PM. I might be amendable also to continuing the experiment through to the end of the chapter, perhaps the whole game (I'm gonna regret that declaration, aren't I?)--if enough people ask me to.

This is exactly the point. You can always improve your writing; hell, the very best novelists out there say the same. There's an industry joke that runs something like: How do you know an author is done revising? When the publication deadline hits. You look at someone like Margaret Weis and you go "Wow, I can literally see her writing style developing as she writes more books." The only real goal is to continue to grow and improve; not to reach some mystical hypothetical pinnacle of written ability. We attribute "Once you stop learning, you start dying" to Einstein himself, but it could be just as easily attributed to any writer or thinker or scientist or intellectual you respect. The more you read, the more you'll be able to hone the ideas for the stories that only you can tell; the more you write, the more you'll be able to hone the language for those stories. And to leave them unwritten would be a great loss, no matter who--if anyone aside from you--is allowed to read them.

Oh, yeah, I didn't expect to win at all. I'm surprised I got votes to begin with. I entered for the purpose of forcing me to enter, which meant I a) submitted a piece of my work to other readers, and b) engaged with this community. Wist, I'm glad my comments seemed helpful; I'd be eager to see how you grow from here!

Since there've been people here who seem like they want to talk to me about my reviews, for whatever reason... I'd be more than happy to give more thorough thoughts individually by pm. I can promise not to judge; I honestly do want to help you (and me) improve. If there's any complaints about what I've said, I'll take those too. Once more, thanks to everyone who submitted, and to everyone working behind the scenes. Congratulations to @Silver Lightning, @Untold Protagonist, @Thor Odinson, and @LiaLiar are in order as well! I'm eager to congratulate the main prize winners in each category, too~

I look forward to it, as at the moment I'm not sure which, offhand, is yours (my reviewing, just like the voting, is blind~). Was it one I enjoyed? Trick question. I very much enjoyed all of them, even the ones I sounded critical about.

“Monday or Tuesday,” huh? Yeesh. Already my presence here is underwhelming. I should’ve known better. I tried to provide at least one identifiable example of the advice I’d given for each review here, this time. Man, I loved reading these. I am, however, new to this community. I have absolutely no idea who among these skilled and talented writers can call English their native language. As I am trained to critique, I will be doing so under the assumption that all entries were written by native speakers. Please, please forgive me this assumption; if I am harsh, it is because that is how I know to grow. And if there are any questions about what I say here, don’t be afraid to ask me about it. Some of my reviews are longer here; usually that's because I have a more in-depth example to demonstrate, and because I'm (sometimes) better at doing so for written works than for visual art. Therefore, I've put each review under a spoiler, as before, and put ALL of them under one gigantic superspoiler. WRITES Thank you everyone who submitted; I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them, and I hope my reviews only ENCOURAGE you to keep writing. Thanks also to everyone who's working behind the scenes to run this contest--and thanks all for letting me participate, both in the submissions and in the reviews.

I'm pleased to hear my comments have been helpful; I tried to critique rather than criticize. I'm about to run up into some difficulty for that based on my own biases. Here's my reviews for the Miscellaneous category. Origami Birthright Minecraft Guy Ike Cosplay Ragnell Replica Amigurumi Sack Takumi Nyx Mini Sculpture Embrace the Dark – Azura’s Song I may have to get to the Writes tomorrow and Tuesday.

I've finally gotten around to reviewing all the Draws. I'll get to the other pieces (misc. and writes) tonight and early tomorrow. I've tried to include at least one thing I liked for each entry, and at least one concrete suggestion for future improvement. Also, just because I say a lot about one piece and not nearly as much for another doesn't mean I prefer one or another of them. It just means I was able to be more concise in my thoughts. XD Fantastic work to all entries mentioned; I look forward to reviewing the rest too. Fetching Friar Dagda and Tanya Untitled Baralph Macedon Royals Linoan Why Can’t I Remember? A Present For You Two Generations Brothers Ain’t Got Nothing on Us Care to chat? A Moment of Peace Lord Hector Knight Lord of Pherae In Ruined Halls Roy Sketch My First Adventure Conflicted Kiria in Fates #05 – Interruption Young Tactician Nino Attacks Alm and Celica Dead or Alive Bubble Tiki Note of Desolation Marth and Caeda Modern Day Tacticians Queen Veronica Ophelia Fire Emblem Logo Redesigns The Plains Sleeper Radiance Sketches (Together Through Hope and Despair)

Having now read several of the fanfic submissions, I have come to the conclusion that I absolutely made the right decision to submit something that wasn't a fanfic. Man, these things are blowing me out of the water. I'm going to try to have something constructive to say about every entry, but in lieu of that for now I just have to congratulate everyone here. These are awesome and I'm having a blast reading and viewing them all.

This. Absolutely this. Thanks to all your efforts, both of you--on organizing this Scribbles stuff and elsewhere.

Agreed on that last bit, and I hope I didn't come across as insensitive either. We can all understand medical and personal issues; I suspect everyone here would rather his efforts--and yours--be spent where it needs to be first and foremost, and here only when that's resolved. I just wish there were more I could do to help you guys but wait and spam F5.

I hate to be the one to bug, so rather than do so... when the gallery IS up, I assume news of its upness will be posted here, but where am I to find it?