Alternate Realities Contest: Entries & Voting Here!

[BeanDip]

1 ) - 3 (RJack, nikohl, T-Rex)
2 )
3 )
4 ) - 1 (FK)
5 ) - 1 (Sam)
6 ) - 3 (LAYF, RJack, BD)
7 ) - 6 (LAYF, Grizz, Krulle, T-Rex, FK, HG)
8 ) - 4 (nikohl, Grizz, Krulle, HG)
9 ) - 1 (BD)
10 ) - 2 (TTW, Sam)

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► Show Spoiler

I think it's important when voting to know if you're looking for a story or an alternate reality. Some entries have alt-realities outlined but little to no story, some have stories but don't really detail the alt-reality outside the scope of that story and some entrants occupy the middle ground. All the entrants were excellent though.

Nice job everyone! All of them were excellent and creative. I especially enjoyed the ones with artwork. Whomever drew Reality 3 and recolored Reality 2 should be proud. I so so so wanted to vote for 3 and would have if there'd been just a bit more info on characters other than the GAP. There's a lot of potential there and again, that artwork is extremely impressive.

9 - I loved the idea of Kin having a root and having to root herself (I'm pretty sure 'root yourself' is something dirty in Australia, though). I found that really cool and creative. The whole thing was cool. I like the 'nature' takes over idea and destroying man-made infrastructure. A green post-apocalypse story is one you don't see often and I've never seen one where nature is the direct cause of the apocalypse in the way you described. It appealed to me personally and I think it makes very cool story material.

EDIT - FriedKitty already got it but I corrected the numbers in my post.

[friedkitty]

1 ) - 3 (RJack, nikohl, T-Rex)
2 )
3 )
4 ) - 1 (FK)
5 ) - 1 (Sam)
6 ) - 3 (LAYF, RJack, BD)
7 ) - 6 (LAYF, Grizz, Krulle, T-Rex, FK, HG)
8 ) - 4 (nikohl, Grizz, Krulle, HG)
9 ) - 1 (BD)
10 ) - 2 (TTW, Sam)

Fixing the numbers

[HennaGaijin]

► Show Spoiler

Fixing the numbers

Whoops yeah sorry, forgot to change them when I added my votes! Thanks friedkitty!

[staron13]

1 ) - 3 (RJack, nikohl, T-Rex)
2 )
3 )
4 ) - 1 (FK)
5 ) - 1 (Sam)
6 ) - 4 (LAYF, RJack, BD, Staron)
7 ) - 6 (LAYF, Grizz, Krulle, T-Rex, FK, HG)
8 ) - 5 (nikohl, Grizz, Krulle, HG, Staron)
9 ) - 1 (BD)
10 ) - 2 (TTW, Sam)

[WearsHats]

Okay, time to announce the winners!

The contestants were:

Entry 1: friedkitty
Entry 2: LooksAtYouFunny
Entry 3: nikohl
Entry 4: BeanDip
Entry 5: ThroughTheWell
Entry 6: JibJib
Entry 7: granite_grizz
Entry 8: Kinkatia
Entry 9: I'm Bob
Entry 10: Krulle

First place and $55 goes to granite_grizz!

I'm also awarding $37 each to the next three slots:

Second place goes to Kinkatia!
Third place goes to JibJib!
Fourth Place goes to friedkitty!

Which means the top two slots both went to new forumites who joined up with the forum specifically for the contest. I do hope they'll hang around and join the community here.

Congratulations to the winners! An excellent crop of stories and ideas.

I am planning to run more contests over the course of the summer. We might even make monthly fic prompt contests a regular thing. With more time to write, read, and vote.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

[granite_grizz]

Thanks Wearshats. I'm glad Thunt posted about it this last weekend or I would have totally missed the contest. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

[nikohl]

I'm glad for the winner and runner ups, well done you guys - but I'm sad not one person liked my drawing

[Krulle]

Congrats, Grizz!

Congrats to all contestants! I found all works great! (not excluding myself....)
@Nikohl: I liked the image, but I missed a bit more background to the alternative reality to keep up with the two I voted for.


And many, many thanks to WearsHats for sponsoring this event!

► Show Spoiler

*Entry 1: friedkitty3 (RJack, nikohl, T-Rex)
*Entry 2: LooksAtYouFunny
*Entry 3: nikohl
*Entry 4: BeanDip1 (friedkitty)
*Entry 5: ThroughTheWell1 (Sam)
 Entry 6: JibJib4 (LAYF, RJack, BeanDip, Staron)
*Entry 7: granite_grizz6 (LAYF, Grizz, Krulle, T-Rex, friedKitty, HennaGaijin)
 Entry 8: Kinkatia5 (nikohl, Grizz, Krulle, HennaGaijin, Staron)
 Entry 9: I'm Bob1 (BeanDip)
*Entry 10: Krulle2 (TTW, Sam)

*: contestant voted

a few things I found interesting:
12 voters (23 votes)
7 contestants also voted (13 votes)
5 non-contestants voted (10 votes) (Many thanks to HG, RJack, Sam, Staron, T-Rex for taking the time!)
a contestant voted with only one vote
only 1 contestant voted for himself (I don't begrudge you for voting for yourself. Your entry was among my favourites and definitely a worthy winner)
166 USD prize money (sponsored by WearsHats - many thanks!)
that makes 7,22 USD sponsored per vote (total prize money/total number of votes)
9,17 USD per vote for the winner (1st prize/number of votes for 1st place).

[nikohl]

But the art was the entry. The text was just fluff, basically a title for the picture. I guess when the description of the contest changed to Fan Fiction I should probably have stopped doing the drawing, but I'd already started by then :/

[WearsHats]

I liked the drawing. And the description didn't change (except to clarify that it wasn't confined to stories about the Maze of Many). I said to tell us about an alternate reality using any medium, and specifically listed fan art. I'm sorry others didn't choose it for their favorites. That doesn't mean they didn't like it. You could only choose 2 out of 10. I'm glad you created it. I'm glad the contest wasn't just text stories.

Oh, wait. I see. I also clarified to focus more on stories because of a question I got, and art kind of took a back seat. I didn't mean for it to come across that way. I should have left well enough alone. I'm sorry, nikohl. (TBH, I didn't even remember doing that. I've gotten so little sleep this month...)

Oh, and for the record Grizz asked me if he was allowed to vote for himself. I told him the vote would be public but that there was no reason he couldn't appreciate his own work. As it happened, his other vote went to the runner-up, so the outcome would have been the same if he hadn't voted at all.

[nikohl]

I'm not mad or anything! I just think the focus was on writing rather than any-medium. I'm glad you liked it and I didn't enter to win, I entered to participate, so its all good A story might have served me better but I'm no good at stories

[WearsHats]

I'm glad you're not mad. (I didn't think you were, really.) But I did mean for this to be an any medium contest, and I'm disappointed that I didn't bring that across properly. I had a few people confused about what was expected in one way or another.

Me, I used to be good at short stories. But I've never really been very good at art.

What was cool was that when I asked people about how to distribute the prize money, several of them wrote back to say that they weren't in it for the money and that if they did happen to win something I should save the money or give it to someone else.

[I'mBob]

Congrats to the winners, and thanks to everyone who participated, vote or he is WearsHats.
And an extra thanks to Wears for holding the contest and giving money from his own to the winners.

[Krulle]

Oh, and for the record Grizz asked me if he was allowed to vote for himself. I told him the vote would be public but that there was no reason he couldn't appreciate his own work. As it happened, his other vote went to the runner-up, so the outcome would have been the same if he hadn't voted at all.

I know. I removed something very similar (outcome unchanged) part in my post as that would have seemed too much rambling, too unsorted....
And not only Grizz asked about it (before the entry deadline).
There was a discussion about "vote for yourself or not" and about "vote by poll" or "vote by post" or "vote by PM".
"Poll" would have been completely anonymous, and only 1 vote per voter.
"by post" would be public, thus causing voters to (inadvertently) follow the horde or vote for perceived "underdogs".
"by PM" would be anonymous (except for the election official) before the voting ends (and after if votes remain unpublished), but a lot of work for the person counting the votes.

Note: Even if I had not forbidden myself to vote for entry 10, I would not have done so, I found entries 7 & 8 simply better. A third vote (in case I would have had 3) would likely have gone to the image, as it was the only piece of graphical art.

3 things I liked about this contest:
- it was one
- severe time constraint from announcing to deadline (not much time to polish the entry)
- something real to win (although I was one who declined receiving money).

And for all these factors I have to thank you, Wears.
You gave me an incentive to finally write down something (I still like my idea of an alternative Herbert having to steer "his" group of players through the dungeon against other Herberts and their respective groups).
The time limit was short, so I had to do it "now or never".
You boosted my self-esteem by causing me to actually get some votes in! Yay! (Although that TTW voted for me was a clue for me that he is a contestant too, but I guessed his entry wrong).

Edit: Before I forget to do it:
Thank you, Wears!


BTW; for the written record: I hereby relinquish all of my rights to my entry to the greater good of the Goblin community. Rights by the owners of GoblinsComic and other figures I have used are not affected, these remain the intellectual property of the respective owners.

[BeanDip]

Congratulations to the winner and all the participants!

And thanks Wears!

[LAYF]

Congratulations granite_grizz!, your entry was really good and I'm glad it won... I hope you'll be glad when your prize arrives in December

Also congratulations to Kinkatia, JibJib and friedkitty


Nikohl, I liked your image.... but i must admit, I like the two other stories two... was a hard choice...

Wears, don't be sorry that the focus was moved away from the art entries... I mostly entered to make sure there were entries, and for the fun of it...

I can only thank you for hosting and paying for such a contest...

but what I AM dissapointed about is the contestants made an entry but did not vote... To be honest, I find that a bit disrespectful... if you did not want to vote because you were afraid to lose, you had two votes and could have voted on yourself with one... and even if... well... honest.. it just disappoints me

OTH: Thanks a ton to HG, RJack, Sam, Staron and T-Rex for taking the time to vote, even do you did not have anything in it yourself...

[ThroughTheWell]

Unstructured Thoughts:

I pimped the contest in 3 threads to get more voters. I did not want to vote for myself. I did vote for the one that I thought was best (aside from mine which I still love), but several others were close beheind it. Some of the clever ones had some point that bugged me (level 7!, demon name != character name, etc). Thank you Sam. I wonder if my disclaimer hurt me in terms of votes? But, since someone might either take offense or recognize similarity, I felt I needed to preemptively address those issues. Has anyone read The Sleeping Dragon? Anyone recognize their mangled username in mine? Thank you Wears, for holding the contest, organizing it, and putting up cash.

Anyone have any questions about mine?

[friedkitty]

That is awesome that new goblinites won!! I too hope they stick around. And nikohl, I too liked your picture. It's a lot better than I could do in that time! The problem was I liked all of them.

And for those of you who were confused by mine like krulle was, my story was about klik. I plan on cleaning it up and making it a little clearer, and possibly reposting it over on the fan fiction thread.

[Krulle]

Well, the concept of a "true name" can be varied very widely.
In many settings, the true name is given by "gods" and not told to any being, and even the being concerned must find out his true name himself (e.g. Eragon series).
Or the true name is what the being concerned thinks of himself. And if "Complains of Names" thinks of himself as "Complains of Names" then that is his true name. (And in his specific case it is true, he is complaining about names rather often, so in the above mentioned Eragon series that could well be his "true name" (the true name is a name that cannot lie about the person, in the Eragon series Eragon did not find out his name, he simply decided and chose one for himself).
In many settings the "true name" can change over time, as the character of that person evolves.
As long as "Complains of Names" is complaining about names it is likely that in Entry 7 (Granite Grizz), the demon Complains of Names will remain a slave to Minmax and Forgath.
And in Thunts reality, the true name apparently does not change, as Not-Walter talks about his name having been given before time started (and therefore did not change in a VERY LONG time).
Something like the "true name" is...... something you have to accept as the author provides it.

About some contestants not voting: yeah. I found that a bit disappointing too, that's why I counted who did and who did not vote.
But it was a lot to read, and it took me conscious effort to really read them all as soon as possible to avoid simply voting for something or not voting at all.

Oh, and people could have voted for only one story, as you did TTW. But most important IMHO is, that anyone voting has evaluated all entries completely.
(here art is an advantage: nearly no time efforts for the ones voting. Rather fast to compare art entries, while text entries may take a lot of time to read and evaluate -> art contests attract more voters).

[ThroughTheWell]

And in Thunts reality, the true name apparently does not change, as Not-Walter talks about his name having been given before time started (and therefore did not change in a VERY LONG time).
Something like the "true name" is...... something you have to accept as the author provides it.

No, I don't have to accept a new author, when they conflict with the original author, IMHO. In the very link you use the name comes from the 'ancients before time'. For me, that does not equal YoungAndBeautifull. And I'd argue that the literary history of demonic truenames is more on my side of the argument.

But my thoughts on this are OT, and irrelevant, maybe having influenced 1 vote.

[friedkitty]

Anyone recognize their mangled username in mine?

Flambe's = Arch Lich Burns

Had it been Flambes Cats, you might have gotten more votes.

[ThroughTheWell]

Actualy, I did Flambe's just as a Fumbles double. They both 'lost their minds', and it showed that the transition was both not without costs and not completely in Herbert's control. And even maybe that bad things could happen on the d&d side. And, I had Nuclear Dan in mind for him, if he'd come through unharmed. http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=1 Nuclear Dan's catchphrase is "I cast fireball, centered on myself!" Sorry Burns, maybe if you'd stayed BurnsBees it might have occured to me, but the whole arch lich thing threw me off.

FK, if your name was Fries Kitties, more in the style of goblinesque names, I just might have made Flambe's Cats.

[friedkitty]

Actualy, I did Flambe's just as a Fumbles double. They both 'lost their minds', and it showed that the transition was both not without costs and not completely in Herbert's control. And even maybe that bad things could happen on the d&d side. And, I had Nuclear Dan in mind for him, if he'd come through unharmed. http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=1 Sorry Burns, maybe if you'd stayed BurnsBees it might have occured to me, but the whole arch lich thing threw me off.

I see now. That was the only one I was unsure of, but when he said "it BURNS" I thought it was a clue. The others I think I got.

► Show Spoiler

Thinkslogically=ThinksLoJack-aly
Glocksatyou=Looks at you Funny
SwearsHats=Wearshats
AskstoMunch=Askstoomuch

[ThroughTheWell]

FK FTW. Yep, you got the other 4. LoJack, for those who don't know is a brand of tracking devices. And Glock is a gun brand. I really liked the tie in between Swears and BigEars reluctance to swear post-Brassmoon pre-DragonMaw.

As for Flambe's, I was trying also to show that a human from our world who suddenly had magical spells poured into their brain might just suffer some side effects, and since his spells were fire based it seemed reasonable that they would burn him out.

[BeanDip]

I plan on cleaning it up and making it a little clearer, and possibly reposting it over on the fan fiction thread.

We have a fan fiction thread? Did I miss it somewhere?