Mischief and Malice One-Shot Contest

[Negrek]

so when the timeline passes can we talk about our work... I made a questionnaire I thought might be fun for others to brag with etcetera, or do I need to wait for results?

Whoops, missed this. You are free to talk about your work with the other participants, just not the judges! So feel free to post your questionnaire, just either put it in the current contest discussion thread or in a new thread that's clearly related to the contest so the judges know to stay out of it.

(I still have like seven entries to get through RIP)

 

[Negrek]

Okay, I'm done collecting all the entries, and the judges are ready to begin their work! At this point, if you have not received a response to your entry, let me know ASAP, because that means I missed it! We had an outstanding amount of participation this year, with a total of twenty-one contest entries submitted!

Although the theme this year was villains, we actually had relatively few submissions featuring a canon villainous team! Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to take a look at which teams did feature in the entry pool this year. Here's what we ended up with:

Trainerverse None/Other: 9
Galactic: 3
Rocket: 3
Plasma: 2
PMD None/Other: 2
Cipher: 1
Dim Sun: 1

Another fact that I found interesting was that nearly half of the entries ended up being Pokémon POV--ninet out of twenty-one!

In any case, things will go quiet for a while as the judges do their work. In the interim, I know there's been some discussion of potentially compiling all entries into a document that participants can read and discuss--that's perfectly fine if you're interested! Please simply keep the discussion confined to the appropriate Discord or forum thread so that the judges can easily avoid it.

Great work to everyone who got an entry in! I hope you enjoyed writing your one-shot.

 

[Inkedust]

Hi, hello! First off, congratulations and best of luck to everyone who entered! I'm sure all the one-shots submitted are of excellent quality and I am excited to read them, though... Why wait until the results come out?

I've consulted with Negrek and I have decided to make a private google document compiling several of the entries. If you have no interest or don't want to have your one-shot being part of this compilation document, that's okay! I'm only going to include the entries that are sent to me so don't worry about your writing getting out there without your explicit permission.

If you are interested in reading the other entries/want your one-shot to be a part of this compilation: Send me a PM asking me about it/with your entry attached and I will link it to you/add it ASAP.

Other than that, happy reading/writing! And a special thanks to the judges for taking on such a Herculean task. They each deserve the longest holiday once all this is over.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I'm glad to see that games outside the main series got some love!

I also hope that everyone posts their fics somewhere we can all read them once we're able to.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Pure curiosity, but may I ask how the judging is coming? I'm eager to read the submissions!

 

[Negrek]

We're hoping to get the judging done in about two months. I'll be looking to update on progress every three weeks or so. As far as I'm aware, the judges are currently working on reading all the entries.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Awesome. Oh sweet that'll give me time to be able to submit it to the local anime con too (which is in November).

 

[K_S]

so since you have all the tales, can we post them on other sites like ao3 and the like, before the final judgment? Or do we need to wait until the final scores are out to put the tales where we like?

 

[Negrek]

Please wait until the results are out before you post your stories publicly!

 

[Negrek]

It's been three weeks since the contest submission closed, so here's our first check-in with the judges! All three judges report that they're doing well and have reviewed around half (9-10) of the entries. They've been enjoying your stories, and I'm sure that putting together those final rankings will be tough!

While we wait for this year's contest results, we'll also be taking a look back at last year and all the great stories we received for our "Friends and Partners" theme. Today's feature is last year's third-place winner, "Ballast" by WildBoots! You can read the fic, the judges' comments, and an interview with Wildboots about the writing process over here.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

How's things progressing now?

 

[Negrek]

Indeed, it's time now for our six-week check-in! At this point, one of the judges is done with their rankings and reviews; one hopes to complete their work within the next week; and one is at 14/21 reviews completed. With any luck, this will be our last check-in!

And as before, while we wait on this year's results, we take a look back at last year as well! For this check-in we're featuring the Friends and Partners second-place entry, "Dark-Clothed Small Human," with a newly-released author interview!

 

[Negrek]

All right, I definitely said I hoped the previous update would be the last, buuuut that didn't make much sense. Instead I hope this is our final judging update of the contest! Two judges have completed their full ranking of fics, and on the whole I'm hopeful that we'll come close to hitting our two-month judging goal. I've also sent out a set of interview questions to all contest participants; these are optional and just for fun. If you answer them, your answers will be posted in the contest results round-up for everyone to see! If I managed to miss you with the questions, just let me know and I'll send them out for you.

We've also now reached our final look back at last year's contest! Be sure to check out last year's first-place winner, Equitial's "Methods of Support," with the accompanying author interview here!