Mischief and Malice Contest - Results

[K_S]

I'm not a fan of the shorter word count... but how about a tournament set u? Where judges do a group of say five entries and the winner of that set goes up against the other winners... I mean there is a point system so it'd be easy to implement.

as for the longer timeframe and fewer contests how about a poll... a "how many should we host per year..." and then give the info on how many judges we'd ideally need for each option so people can make educated decisions and we can perhaps drum up some interest in judging.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Another thing for the future--please, if a judge isn't familiar with a character, at least look them up. Asking if Mitsumi, one of the main characters of Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, was an original character was super awkward.

 

[Equitial]

Another thing for the future--please, if a judge isn't familiar with a character, at least look them up. Asking if Mitsumi, one of the main characters of Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, was an original character was super awkward.

But in this case, Googling the character wouldn't have necessarily helped at all. If you Google "Mitsumi Pokemon," you'll be told she's a character in D&P Adventure... but only that she's an assistant to Prof. Rowan. You'd have to read the entire article to know about her connection to Team Galactic, but many would likely just assume the name's the same before that.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Eh? Bulbapedia gives a fair bit of information. Why wouldn't you read the article? It's not like it's especially long or would require any sort of real digging. Yeah of course you'd read the entire article. Why do you act like that's asking something wild or unreasonable?

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Another thing for the future--please, if a judge isn't familiar with a character, at least look them up. Asking if Mitsumi, one of the main characters of Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, was an original character was super awkward.

I don't mean to be rude, but the onus is kinda on the writer to provide whatever context is needed for their story to be understood. It's nice for people to go and look up the backstory of things you're writing about on their own, but it's not something they're obligated to do. Much in the same way that talking about a Dragon Gym Leader named "Watson" in a vacuum would make the vast majority of readers assume that the writer is depicting an OC and not Drayden from another localization name.

There have been other entries that were similarly docked in the past for getting too thick into the weeds without providing sufficient context for the judges. Perhaps it could be stated more explicitly in the guidelines of future contests, but I think that should just be something that should be kept in mind in advance by writers.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

The context was the fic itself. I shouldn't have to explain the origin of every character I use. I'd even told Negrek that I would be writing from the DPA manga and asked if the judges would be familiar with that. I wouldn't define any aspect of my fic as "thick into the weeds" when the answers of "is this a canon character" would be one Bulbapedia search away. I've even posted a fic with this character before! Nobody seemed to have any quibbles then or wondered if I had made her up.

 

[Equitial]

The context was the fic itself. I shouldn't have to explain the origin of every character I use. I'd even told Negrek that I would be writing from the DPA manga and asked if the judges would be familiar with that. I wouldn't define any aspect of my fic as "thick into the weeds" when the answers of "is this a canon character" would be one Bulbapedia search away. I've even posted a fic with this character before! Nobody seemed to have any quibbles then or wondered if I had made her up.

Does it really matter if someone thinks Mitsumi is an OC? Frankly, I read your oneshot, and imo it doesn't need context. I'm not familiar with the manga (though I knew Mitsumi wasn't yours from reading your contest interview) and I could understand the story fine. From the judges' comments, not knowing the character didn't harm their reading either.

Whether someone writes a canon character or an original one, there are drawbacks. If you have an original character, you have to start from scratch; if you have a canon character, a reader's knowledge of the source will influence their reading depending on the story. Everyone had to deal with that in this contest. You had someone unfamiliar with your chosen character, but I don't really see any issues here? So the judge asked if it was an OC or not, I genuinely don't see what harm came about.

 

[Negrek]

Let's not get too into this, please. Not all judges will be familiar with all aspects of the Pokémon canon; some may think to look up aspects they're unfamiliar with. Some may not know where to find important information, may not realize that they're missing something in the first place, or may not find not being familiar with a particular aspect of canon to be a problem when it comes to appreciating the story. If you do think that there's some important background the judges will need to properly understand your work, please feel free to include a brief note along with your fic clarifying the point. Sorry that wasn't clear; I actually thought you had included a note about Mitsumi with your story, but it looks like you didn't. In the future I'll try to remember to make that recommendation for anyone who might have something they feel the judges ought to understand about their work.

 

[kintsugi]

A huge thanks to all of the judges and Negrek!! I had a ton of fun writing for this, and I'm really enjoying reading the other entries; thank you all for the hard work that you put in to make this possible. Big event is big and I'm blown away by how much work it must've been to read all of the entries and provide such involved feedback for everyone! Really loved reading through the judge comments for everyone tbh; you guys did a ton of work!

I changed my title, big sorry, it will probably change again. (I do not mind having it listed under 'like you belong'! sorry for the confusion). TR | AO3