Aww, skunk lost.

Ah, well, there's still some interesting people in the tournament. Wonder how far Jag will go...

Who knows! Came in third last time, though this time who knows! *Snickers* Byser was awesome though! <3

Best of luck to you! ^_^

Ok, I admit. I epicly fail at vore and even more with comics....never should have entered but now I feel I know what to do next.

There is NEVER anything wrong with trying, giving something your all, and coming away with experience. ;)

Just FYI: Supports aren't mandatory. We judged based on the characters present, not on those who could have been there.

I'm going to let Russet defend himself on the actual scoring and stuff, but that was a point I wanted to clarify.

... I won? Awesome! By one point? Scary. o.o

Also, I can't download the file, it seems. D:

I haven't heard of any other problems downloading it yet... Would it have anything to do with the filetype? *looks into it*

I think it's just a connection issue that made the download go wrong, so the problem's probably on my end.

I won? Holy crap, I thought I woulda lost. I can definantly see that having waited till the week before the entry was due severely hindered me. I won't make the same mistake again... if I can help it that is, I still have school and stuff.

And I still love Talu's entry better then mine, even if it wasn't judged as well.

Congratulations! I hope you make it through your next round! Well done ss

I want to say thank you to the judges for such detailed critique. As it was my first real foray into writing, I can use all of it to get better. It is much appreciated :)

Remind me to bop Stank for completely getting my name wrong again. :P

Would've been helpful if this round wasn't in the absolute WORST possible location for Aira. The whole reason I put his victory as a luck-based thing in my story is because Aira was severely limited in what he could do. I really felt that this situation made it difficult for me to come up with a good battle scene.

I edited it in the Table of Contents when I saw it XD but that's as far as I got

aaaand yeah... which makes me feel kinda bad honestly, cause I get the feeling the next round would have been perfect for you... in a way anyhow... XP

It was just kind of annoying that I had so many abilities listed and couldn't really use any in a way I normally would because of the conditions. A volcano field is even worse than a desert. But alas, that's the luck of the draw.

In a metagaming way, though, you were actually at a terrain advantage because you had the opportunity to make your character's plight more difficult and therefore more interesting.
In the end, we all know your character is going to win. It's how you get there against all adversity that matters, and you clearly had adversity here being faced against a beta-tester in a world devoid of plant life.

Not to say you failed or anything, but in the end, how you use the terrain is up to you. It's an opportunity, not a handicap.

Hmm, some sound advice from the judges. Each one gave a different perspective, though I saw some common elements in all of them. Hopefully I can fix some mistakes, and further my story for next time.

That's why there are five of us. :D

And here I thought it was so you could gang up on each individual as you tore them to shreds - I mean their entry to shreds. :P

Well...>.>

Hmm... Just started reading the critiques, and based on  zelgodis-graywords's critiques, my proofreading skills need some improving, as I am the one who proofread it for him...

Ah well, at-least this will get me to rethink or do different literary styles... congrats to the winners.

By all means keep trying what you did here at times. Try to perfect it, as it's pretty much unique.

Remember, Unique doesn't translate to good... and quiet frankly my technique is what needs to be polished... if it means telling the narrative from a 2-D character's perspective.

Well, in my opinion at least, and I'm pretty sure some of the other judges mentioned this too, your narrative style -was- a good risk to take. You just need to make it less confusing.

Also: Don't do second person. Only Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and instruction manuals are written in that perspective.

I already figured it would of done better in comic medium with more visual representation, however that being said, you don't need to justify yourself about your score... I know where I'm doing wrong and I shouldn't be taking too many risks.

Wasn't a justification. It was a clarification. :P

X3 No need to clarify what is already crystal.

But it looked like you weren't understanding! D:

I understood, I was thinking to much as a Comic writer, and not enough as a Literal... Had I went the visual route you would of known whom the perspectives were from, the crumbling of the unstable enviroment

Also as Daimen's entry about the wolf knowing his opponents before each fight was actually going to be a huge plot twist for later, but then I forget that I should be leaving more closure at the end of each match as opposed to raising only more questions.

And the final nail in my coffin was the fact that I ran out of other charecter angles realizing I would be confined to the encounter and banking on the fact that if I can get to round two, get the Moderator's involved with Katojana's complaint of foul play, which could of been used in the first one...

^^; and of course shamefully down-playing my own character, keeping him an enigma would be very hard if I told it from his side...

I understand my mistakes and believe me I'm going to try harder next year.

Alright. Sounds like you got it. I just must have misinterpreted what you said. :P

You have a lot of potential. Don't ever forget that. And from the sound of it, you won't.

So you don't think I won't make another attempt, or you don't believe I'm not going to put forth more effort? *crosses his arms in response to that last statement.*

Uh, neither?
Now I -know- you misread my statement.

I said you shouldn't forget you have a lot of potential, and from the sound of it, you aren't going to forget it. That's because you intend to join again. That's a good thing. Words of encouragement.

Ah... it appears that misread that last statement thinking it was a separate response. --; IM's and the late night must of taken my INT.

And thanks for the words...

Perhaps!

No problem, sir.

Russet, sweetie, it's spelled "Selena". XP

Er Selena then! Sorry! *ducks and hides*

Be thankful he was only off by a single letter |3 he dropped off most of my name (though to be fair, it's not an anglophone name)

And Stank has apparently decided that my character is named Vulpine? x3


I don't really hold it against the judges though nor do I fault them for the spelling and grammatical errors. They had to read and write a tremendous volume, and what is really important here is the content.

Well, seeing as how I lost I really don't have any right to complain about anything other than nitpicks. Any 'real' complaints will just make me sound like a sore loser.

well it was fun well it lasted. i had to rush this too much, though i think i would have made a lot of the same mistakes regardless. ^^; it was nice to have such a friendly and skilled opponent though.

Well, I was afraid that the story would be a tad bit vague. As far as the story behind the characters as well as the tournament itself, that was a challenge to do. I really didn't read the first VOCT enough to throw any hinting rumors that would be in a forum before the fight started. The Time Sweepers like Frostcat don't actually have a true background and I didn't want to risk giving the wrong information about Verace. Vore wise, I really haven't gotten the nack of a fully detailed description on my end or what Verace's reaction should be while it happens.

With those explained, the loopholes were there. No problem though. All the more better to be prepared next time. =~_^=

Meh too rushed did it last few seconds.... congratz to Beserker

OH GAH it feels so awesome to get criticism for once on my story entries :O. Of course there was some stuff that was hard to swallow from you judges but Ill take the advice you have given me and TRY to fix the issues. Sad thing is however about the editing. I did have some editors lined up but >.> they had other things. So I had to edit the darn thing myself ^^;; Just last night after the results, (since we had such a long 3 week period) I had to refresh my memory about the entry and found a few last night >.<;;. Still though, the only problem I found with judging is that some of you like portions of the story while a few others did not..so its hard who to base the important things on. Either keep the idea or fix it...hmm. Still though, thanks for the constructive criticism and I will hopefully fix a lot of issues for the next round.

Well, you won't be able to please everyone, obviously, so things that only one judge pointed out as not liking that the others didn't really touch on is something that could probably be overlooked or at least not worried about quite as much. Instead, if you're looking for things to improve on, then look for the patterns of things that everyone seemed to point out and work on those things first.

This was very helpful! One of my main weakness is writing the characters of others.. I guess I still made him a bit *too* chatty. The reactions (especially people commenting on my attention to detail!) are extremely helpful. I'm also thrilled that I scored well enough to be 'brought back', especially since I only lost by two points. =)

The fact that (depending on when the next story is due,) I won't have to be dealing with classes may make it easier for me to get done sooner, and go back and polish the whole deal more.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been in VOCT1 to have only the faintest idea of why you won or lost.

The current rubric-oriented judging format, with public critiques, is really excellent. :3 In addition to being fair from a competitive standpoint, it is also extremely helpful for each participant to improve themselves as artists/authors.



(no love for the slo-mo action brackets X3 and here I thought I was being so clever with them)

Oh yes. Being a competitor in the VOCT1, I can attest to the wonders of actually knowing why you win or lose.

To this day, I still don't have a clear idea of why I lost other than that my opponent was a better artist than me and apparently had a better story somehow, though no explanation was given other than a minor nitpick about pacing in my story. That -had- to change.

wow quite the collection of judging