I would like to apoligize for my entry. I had procrastinated far too much and focused more on getting the entry done then on getting it done well, which is just what I wanted to avoid. I am truly happy Flare passed onwards. If he hadn't I would have felt bad, as he put so much more effort twords his story then I did. I could have made the story better if I had given myself more time. And after there already had been a time extension too. I just feel like I let myself down >.<

We all make mistakes. If it means anything, I kicked myself for procrastinating on the judging too.

Heh... thanks.

It just seemed the biggest complaint was on the typos and such. And most of the story was hastily typed in the hours approaching the deadline. I think im going to go back and re-write it, for Flares sake. He deserves something better than what I produced.

A noble gesture, I must say. :)

I really don't have much to say besides a little somethin' to Stank, I'm a learn comic artist. :C It's hard for me to estimate how much space I'll need for a panel, but I'm trying make the gaps small enough so it's not so noticeable.


But I also realize it's almost impossible to meet of the judge's personal preferences, so I'm pretty much just going for what I know. D:

Well you did very well. ;)

I will grade as I see fit. It seems the conflict arises because I have studied a different kind of comic style than the one you practice. That is unfortunate, but unless you can give me a reason pertaining to theme or story for the gaps I will have to critique on not using the whole paper. This is how I roll. ;)

That said, you really did do a good job you know.

Well that makes sense, you're only rating off of what you know about comics. But again I know I can't win in ALL categories unless I sweep the board with cheat codes. D:


But even so I still appreciate the time you and the rest of yalls take to review my comic. I do agree that I need work in some areas but everyone has their weaknesses, lol.

Apparently, compared to the previous round, I did terrible. Oh well. Thought I had something good going on, but apparently nobody else felt that way.

Don't take it too hard. You did have something going on. Your scores were still above-average, you may notice. I can't speak for the other judges, but it was pretty clear to me that you had a plan.

Just because you didn't win doesn't mean your entry was a failure. Judging is done in a matter of degrees, not a pass-fail basis. You did not fail. To put it in school terms, you got an 80% and Landon got an 84% or so (not actually mathematically accurate. Just an example).

To put it in school terms, I got a 63.

As I said, not mathematically accurate. Keep in mind, however, that a 10 is the equivalent of a C, as it means "average."

I know that I personally started judging harsher this round. I was a tad more forgiving in the first round to let the players ease into things. I believe other judges may have done something similar.

The critique provided by the judges is the biggest win for me with this contest as a whole, no matter how far I make it overall. I know I have a very very slim chance at winning it all, but it's nice to know where I succeed at and where I can improve. There only thing that troubles me is when the judges sometimes contradict each other with what they say.

For example, Humbug wrote "Half the songs you used didn't really fit the situation and just seemed to come out of nowhere," while Russet wrote, "Once again Luke did a brilliant job of adding song lyrics to his prose. I felt this time that they where more in tune with what was going on in the story at the time."

It's most likely simply a matter of the judges' opinions, and I'll of course try and work on this area to make sure the songs fit better in Round 3, but it is still a bit odd to notice, as this was not the only example of this =p

Yeah. When dealing with contradicting opinions, you know two things: 1) The parts described actually made an impact on the judges in one way or another and 2) You should probably try to make the dissenting judge see what the complimenting judge saw, to the best of your ability. It's obviously something you should keep doing, but it needs to be tweaked.

I'll just note here, while I'm thinking about it, that I didn't even take the songs into consideration when I was judging. With the exception of the one by Tenacious D which I found myself having to know what was about, I didn't even listen to them. And I think my reasoning has to do with Flare's entry. Flare also included a piece of music to be played during a scene in his story... the difference between his music selection and yours being, that the piece of music he submitted was something that he wrote and composed himself. It was literally HIS music. So I had to listen to it and consider it as part of the judging when I was working on these.

With yours, you're providing links to music which you yourself have not created. So I can't really accept those songs as part of your entry. (Just like I didn't consider a picture Myrmidon did to accompany Flare's entry when I was judging that) Now, the parts where you include the lyrics in your writing... that's fine. That works well enough and compliments things nicely. I'm just saying that I don't (and won't) consider the music itself while judging your entries. And hence why I really made no mention of it in my judging here.

Well, I haven't read Flare's entry, but I doubt we have the same goal with how we're using music. I'm merely utilizing the idea that some people use music for motivation in situations such as this while using appropriate songs and lyrics for the situations to reenforce what's happening in the scene (as best I can). As a former track runner, I would listen to running themed and similar pump up music before meets. I clearly love music, but sadly have no musical talents of my own. Similarly to how I also write, but ironically I actually really dislike reading XD

I also noticed a couple judges commented on how the music lyrics and my thoughts being in the same font was confusing. The reason I used the format I did was just that, the lyrics are my thoughts because I am actually listening to it and it is playing in my mind during the battles. I will still strongly consider changing it up for the sake of the pubic, confusion and whatever, but I thought I'd explain the reason behind why I wrote it the way I did =p

And lastly, why I put the links for the songs: There really isn't any importance to the links, certainly none to the story itself. I just threw them out there in case the readers were interested in hearing them, sharing my musical taste and whatnot. Call it a shameless plug even if you will, but just know that it's not meant to be important to the story itself.

*nods* and that's all fine. I wasn't really complaining about you using them or anything.

aaand okay, see what you mean there with the lyrics being your thoughts... that makes sense.

Alrite, that's good to know. I'll try and make my intentions a bit more clear with them, make them more accurate to the scenes, etc... for the next round to the best of my ability. I know it's probably one of the only unique features, so I figure I better do it as well as I can XP

Nice! This seems like a much more efficient way to post the judging, and it doesn't run the same risk of getting pushed off by other journals.

Oh, also I'd be curious to know what exactly a 'deus ex machina' is in storytelling. A plot device? A loophole? A kill-all?

It means that something comes along at the last second that saves a character from a situation s/he otherwise wouldn't be able to get out of.

Most of the time, a deus-ex-machina is nothing but an ass-pull, which is why it's negative.

Ah, thanks for the info!

Welcome. It's a term that comes up fairly frequently, so it's good to know!

Cool beans.

Its hard to decide what i should do sometime, as the judges have some conflicting opinions. Thankfully this time everyone was looking about the same perspective and I have gotten some helpful points from the review.

Whenever judges have conflicting opinions, your goal should be to write the sections in a way that the dissenting judge sees things the same way the complimenting judge does. Don't throw out those sections; just fine-tune them.

I understand that. I picked a handfull of elements from my first round that requeired improvement and worked on it. I will do the same this time.

Makes sense!

Indeed. I better get started if Im going to beat Victor

I am very happy with the critiques. A couple were what I expected by most often everyone said extremely helpful things. I was dreading reading these but I knew I could never advance if I hide away from bad news. There was surprisingly less bad news than I had expected. I want to thank everyone for everything and apologize for my last remarks left in the Lapseph's journal...I was drunk. Thank you all and thank you again Lapseph for the invite. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Thanks for taking it like a champ! Your second-round entry improved a boatload on your first, as you may have noticed, so there's a victory for you.

Thank you. I spent more time editing this time.

It wasn't really hard to take it like a champ. Just about all of you had something helpful to say and you were all very encouraging. I'm not happy that I lost, but I'm glad my story was able to do what I set out for it to do...entertain some one.

*Nod.* Makes sense. Did you have fun in the meantime? That's another thing that matters.
Losing is a beyotch, but it can be mitigated of course. :3

Of course. I love to play with ideas and see them come out into a scene.

Most of the mistakes here is stuff of which I was already aware even before opening this document. X3 I was not happy with my submission. Still, it is extremely useful to see these problems being reaffirmed by neutral readers. I thank the judges for their time and for their thoughts.


I apologize, Sefra, for the double cliffhanger. It was done more out of back-to-the-wall necessity than creative choice. I absolutely agree that it was bad form, wearying, and just lame. X3 I promise you that my entries from here on out will have real endings.



Some of those critiques, though, actually caught me off guard and made me wince a little...not because they were false, but because they were true and I was not aware of them. Yes, my plot really is a somewhat over-ambitious pile of (seemingly) unrelated stuff. I do often 'tell' when 'showing' would be better. My opponents get more spotlight than my protagonist, who himself is surrounded in confusion and a (seemingly) excessive backstory.

I could try to defend my choices with explanations and excuses but...why bother? The energy I would spend doing so would be much better channeled towards redeeming my image with action. Starting with a thermonuclear round 3 that will address these critiques any whose score will (with a little luck) break 90. >;3