Mykul

[quote name='DeLarge'][SIZE=1] You wanted it long, didn't you Lrb. Be careful what you wish for next time. [/SIZE][/QUOTE] The funniest part of the post wasn't even story-related...

[quote name='Anomaly'][FONT="Garamond"] Mykul, I swear, if there's a round 1.4... =P [/FONT][/QUOTE] Well, there wasn't [I]going[/I] to be one. Now, however, I think that one might be necessary. Oh, and thanks to everyone who has been sending me feedback and ideas. Keep them coming! If any of you non-participating members have a good idea for a match, let me hear it!

Ok, here's the deal. I've decided that in order to make the numbers work out, I'm going to have Anomaly and Lrb duke it out in a round 1.3. The winner will go on to round two, which will be between four people. Some possible complaints and my answers: - Winners of round one matches, I know you've been wating a long time for round two. I'm very sorry, and very thankful for your patience. Fallback excuse: if people hadn't signed up for this contest and then ditched, we wouldn't be in this mess. Please continue to hang in their with me. - The big problem is that Anomaly and Lrb are going to have to compete in one more match than everyone else. This is unfair, to be sure, but I again rest on my fallback argument. It was either this, or have round two be some sort of hybrid with an odd number. That being said, the match should be up within 24 hours. Thanks again for your patience, everyone. _M_

[quote name='chibi-master']Ah, I had fun either way!:catgirl:[/QUOTE] I'm glad! Also, I'm sure everyone was happy to compete with you. I hope that you and all other members who are not moving on to round two will still stay active and vote.

Alright, round 1.2 is officially over! Thanks to all the members who voted. Our winners for this round are [B]Anomaly and Lrb[/B], who will be moving on to the next round. I believe I have the format down for round 2...but it may need work. Expect it within the next couple of days. If anyone has any ideas or master plans pertaining to the carrying-out of round 2, PM me.

[FONT="Courier New"][SIZE="3"][B]After a splendid match, the victor is[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT="Impact"][SIZE="4"]ANOMALY[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT="Courier New"][SIZE="3"][B]Allamorph was the tie-breaker. By one vote, the winner is[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT="Impact"][SIZE="4"]Lrb[/SIZE][/FONT]

CTRL+F has alerted me to two terrible facts: 1. Nobody has mentioned [U]Watchmen.[/U] 2. Nobody has uttered the name Alan Moore...not even Ezekiel. He's one of your fellow countrymen, for God's sake! If you're looking strictly for super hero action, I would recommend- no, I would shout at the top of my lungs, "[SIZE="3"]go get [U]Watchmen![/U][/SIZE] Truthfully, anything by Alan Moore is good. [U]V for Vendetta[/U] would be next on the list, once you take out [U]Watchmen[/U]. And as nerdsy mentioned: Frank Miller's [U]The Dark Knight Returns[/U] is definitely required reading for any fan of Batman [I]or[/I] Frank Miller.

I would like to take this time to remind everybody that voting will be closed tonight at midnight, rather than tomorrow (the 6th). It seems that the voting has pretty much ended. So, if anybody who hasn't voted yet wishes to have their say, now is the time!

[quote name='Vicky'][size=1]I'm just around to hurt people and smash things, aren't I? >_

Just an update, quickly. Everyone got their entries in on time for round 1.2! Thanks alot everyone! Now let's get all that voting going!

That was great! Lrb tackling himself...I would say that you have this parody humor down. If I could make one suggestion: If you made sure to start a new paragraph whenever there is a change of speaker, it might read a little easier. Post more soon!

[CENTER]This one took me a while. I thought I was going to have something to say before each of these stories. It turns out I was wrong. Yes, this is a lengthy piece.I don't really expect anyone to read it. I just like having it here.[/CENTER] [COLOR="DimGray"][CENTER][U]The New Car and The Last Poem[/U] [/CENTER] It was the classic tale: Tim loved his wife, and his wife loved his money. It hadn?t always been this way. When they had first met, Tim was unemployed. He was fresh out of college, bright, enthusiastic, and wretchedly poor. He survived only by living off the kindness of his friends, with no recompense to offer but hugs and promises of repayment. ?Just wait. When I?m a rich author someday, I?ll pay you back triple!? he would say. And he meant it. Dana had a job as a waitress. When she met Tim at a party, she fell recklessly in love. At first, she thought this was very odd. She had always chased after the big, burly men that had hair on their chests and jail time under their belts. But what she felt for the thin, innocent, bespectacled man completely transcended biker-boy lust. She was in love with the way he talked, with the way he breathed, and with the way that he [I]thought[/I]. Somehow, days after their first meeting, she was intimately familiar with the most basic building blocks of his existence, the very [I]stuff[/I] that made him the man that he was. And so they were married. They lived in an apartment that was more like a broom closet with a sink and a stove. They ate two square meals a day, and more often than not these meals consisted of water and cold spaghettiOs. But the conversations they shared over such feasts were filled with laughter and smiles. The two thought they could survive this way forever, as long as they had each other. Tim?s career as a fiction writer didn?t ?take off,? as people normally say of such things; it [I]exploded[/I]. With the revenue from his first three books alone, he was able to move himself and his wife into a deluxe apartment in the best part of the city. The books kept coming out of Tim?s head, and the money kept pouring into the bank. Tim could finally afford to give Dana all the nice things she had always deserved. And that was the problem. Dana[I] knew[/I] that she had always deserved nice things. Once Tim became successful, it was as if she finally came to the realization that she had been short-changed her entire life. Was she about to let the world get away with this injustice? Hell no. She proceeded, on principal of fairness, to slavishly pursue every expensive thing that could ever make a woman happy. As time passed, and as Tim wrote more books (and just as many scripts for movies), Dana continued to change. Each dollar in her pocket made her forget a little part of why she had loved her husband so fiercely. By the time the couple purchased and moved into a beachside mini-mansion, Dana had completely lost that untraceable attraction that had once bound her so unexpectedly to her man. All that she was left with was disdain for the scrawny, balding, saggy ATM machine that was her spouse. Tim did everything he could to remind his wife of what they once had. He would scribble poems for her on napkins, leaving them in her purse in the morning when he left for work, just like he did when they were young. She never once thanked him for these surprises, or even mentioned them at all. Tim suspected she was throwing them away. She was. He continued writing them for her anyway. As one can imagine, Dana?s lust for high-dollar items always peaked during the Christmas season. She took infinite pleasure in recounting the gifts she had asked for when she was a girl- a Barbie, a new hair brush, a pair of skates like the neighbor girl had- and comparing them to the things she received now. How stupid and childish those things all seemed, when compared to in-ground swimming pools, Gucci Genius Jeans, and diamonds! So, in order to make up for the embarrassing mistake of enjoying cheap plastic dolls in her childhood, she demanded increasingly extravagant gifts from Tim. One Christmas in particular, the first celebrated in their new tropical home, Dana decided she wanted a car. Not just any Ford POS ?06, mind you. Dana?s hands ached to grasp the steering wheel of a brand new Maybach 57 S. Price tag: $367,000 USD. First, Dana tried dropping subtle hints. ?Did you see that car in Spielberg?s last movie? The one the bad guy drove? Wasn?t it [I]gorgeous[/I]?? Or, ?I felt so[I] plain[/I] driving to the mall the today, Tim. Every redneck in Florida owns a Porsche! It?s embarrassing!? Tim, however, didn?t want to discuss his wife?s desire for a new auto. He was more concerned with talking about current events, or asking how his wife?s day had been. [I]What a dull man.[/I] Dana thought.[I] Can?t he take a hint?[/I] It soon became obvious to Dana that subtlety was getting her nowhere. Her next plan was more aggressive: the seduction of her husband. ?Timothy,? she cooed in his ear, stroking his back lightly with the tips of her fingers. ?What are you going to get me for Christmas?? Her hand slid over the border that divided back from front, north from south. But when he rolled over to take her, grinning with animal lust, she couldn?t go through with it. Turning away, Dana muttered something about remembering an early coffee date with a friend. Dejected and confused, Tim rolled over and left her alone. Dana decided then and there that she would rather drive her shitty Porsche for the rest of her life than let that old, bald skeleton mount her. It was Christmas Eve when Dana lost all control. Tim had continued to show no interest in Dana?s latest, most urgent desire, and almost certainly had not purchased for her a new Maybach 57 S. Now he would pay. ?You ungrateful jerk! How dare you call me selfish?! How [I]dare[/I] you?! You?d be nothing without me! It was me who sheltered you and fed you, back when you were a pathetic, mewling excuse for a writer. And what thanks did you give me? What do you [I]still[/I] give me? Poems! Cards! Stories! We didn?t [I]need[/I] any of that shit, Tim! We needed [I]money[/I]! But you didn?t care about that. You just sat at home, typing away on your stupid little typewriter, working on your idiotic stories, while I slaved all day to keep us alive! Was [I]that[/I] selfish of me, Tim? Was it?!? Her breaths were short and fast. Her nostrils flared and her eyes threw stones. ?And now that we [I]have[/I] money, you still can?t do any better for me! You keep putting those damn napkins in my purse, as if I[I] wanted [/I]that shit!? Tim?s eyes were hazy. He stammered and stuttered, searching for something to say in retort, but it was no use. Dana had pulverized him; stripped him of all his weapons. He wanted to ask her if she had always felt this way. He wanted to ask her if she had even once bothered to read any of the poems he had written her. Most of all, he wanted to know when she had stopped loving him. [CENTER]* * *[/CENTER] Dana woke up Christmas morning, alone in her bed. [I]Tim must have spent the night at a hotel[/I], she thought as she roused her aging body. She shuffled downstairs to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and thinking about the things she had said to her husband the previous day. She felt a small speck of guilt for the way she had treated Tim. Even though she had meant every awful word she had said, there are some things that even Dana knew a person should never have to hear. [I]I didn?t need to go so far[/I], she conceded. [I]I?ll apologize as soon as he gets home. It is Christmas, after all.[/I] Upon entering the kitchen, Dana heard a noise. A car was idling in the garage. [I]Good. He must have just gotten home.[/I] In the spirit of making amends, Dana began making a pot of coffee for the two of them. However, something was not right. After several minutes the pot was on, and Dana could still hear the car engine running. [I]Just what is he up to?[/I] Dana walked to the door the door that led to the garage. She opened it cautiously. A cry of joy fled her lips, and was quickly transformed into a scream of horror. There in front of her, parked neatly and humming readily, shone a brand new Maybach 57 S. Tim was slumped limply in the driver?s seat. Where his ear should have been there was a gaping maw; his nightshirt was stained red. The world rose up beneath Dana, catching her as she fell. [CENTER] ***[/CENTER] Dana sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a blanket. Two police officers stood beside her, attempting to question her without much success. More officers were busy with the ?scene? in the garage. Their voices were audible in the kitchen. An elderly officer walked slowly, determinedly into the kitchen and asked Dana?s interrogators to leave. When they had gone, the officer seated himself at the table. In his hand he held a piece of paper inside of a plastic bag. ?We found this in his pocket when we searched him,? the officer began. He took a tired breath and reluctantly clarified, ?it?s a poem.? Dana looked at the bagged paper. The policeman held it gingerly with two fingers, as if it were something dirty or indecent. She didn?t need to interpret the look in his face. She had never been more frightened of anything in her entire life. ?Anyway, we-? the officer stopped, chose his words. ?We think he wrote it for you.? [I]Of course he did[/I], Dana thought. The blood was fleeing her face, her hands, and her legs. ?It?s evidence, so I can?t give it to you.? The officer then placed the awful thing on the table in front of Dana, blank side up. She stared at the bag as if it were a snake prepared to strike. ?But I can let you read it, in the bag, before I take it away.? His job over, the officer sat up and exited the kitchen much more quickly and readily than he had entered it. [CENTER] ***[/CENTER] Half an hour later, the elderly officered reentered the kitchen. Dana was gone, and the note was still face down on the table. He picked it up, making sure his eyes didn?t so much as catch a glimpse of the words on the other side. [I]Not again[/I], he vowed to himself. As he left the kitchen, the veteran policeman found himself wondering if the widow had even read the poem. She hadn?t. [/COLOR]

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate everyone who has advanced to round two! Way to go! Secondly, as you may have noticed, the round 1.2 matches are now available. Just like last time, the deadlines for both voting and submissions are subject to change. It seems more than likely that we won't be starting round two until these two new matches wrap up, unless I think of a better way to do things. If you have any suggestions, please PM me.

[CENTER][SIZE="4"]THE GREAT OTAKU PROSE CONTEST[/SIZE] Round 1.2 [SIZE="4"][B]SABRINA [/B]VERSUS [B]Lrb[/B][/CENTER][/SIZE] [CENTER][SIZE="1"]Voting is open to all Otaku members except Sabrina and Lrb. Voters, please state your vote clearly. Also, please provide information that shows why you voted the way you did. [COLOR="Red"]The deadline for voting is Friday, February 6.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER] [U][FONT="Courier New"][SIZE="4"][B]The Challenge: 6 Fiction:[/B][/SIZE][/FONT][/U] That's right. Again. You know the rules by now: the stories must be exactly [SIZE="3"]6[/SIZE] words. Write [SIZE="3"]3[/SIZE] of 'em. Voters will vote for the author of their favorite [SIZE="3"]1[/SIZE]. [SIZE="1"][COLOR="Red"]Since 6 fiction is not a work-intensive challenge, submissions should be in by Thursday, January 29.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[CENTER][SIZE="4"]THE GREAT OTAKU PROSE CONTEST[/SIZE] Round 1.2 [SIZE="4"][B]CHIBI-MASTER [/B]VERSUS [B]ANOMALY[/B][/CENTER][/SIZE] [CENTER][SIZE="1"]Voting is open to all Otaku members except Chibi-Master and Anomaly. Voters, please state your vote clearly. Also, please provide information that shows why you voted the way you did. [COLOR="Red"]The deadline for voting is Friday, February 6.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER] [FONT="Courier New"][B][U][SIZE="4"]The Challenge: Say That You Love Me[/SIZE][/U][/B][/FONT] Valentine's Day is fast approaching, friends. Write a short story between [SIZE="3"]100[/SIZE] and [SIZE="3"]500[/SIZE] words that deals with love. Any kind of love. Brotherly love, tough love, romantic love, the love of money. Take any spin on it that you want. [SIZE="1"][COLOR="Red"]All submissions should be in by Thursday, January 29.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

I need someone to design a graphic for me. What kind of graphic, you ask? It's a secret. I know, I'm being lame. Hope this isn't breaking the rules of the art studio.... However, I really do need help with something that I can't state outright. If anyone is talented and generous enough to help me, please shoot me a PM. The job isn't hard. I swear.

[FONT="Courier New"]This was a close bout, but the winner is[/FONT] [FONT="Impact"][SIZE="4"]DELARGE[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT="Courier New"]Voting closed. The winner, moving on to round two, is[/FONT] [FONT="Impact"][SIZE="4"]VICKY[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT="Courier New"]Voting Closed The winner, moving on to round two, is [/FONT] [FONT="Impact"][SIZE="4"]SHY[/SIZE][/FONT]

Wonderful! Looks like we're all set, then! I need time to set up the matches, since today is my "choc-full of classes day." At any rate, the two new matches will be up before midnight. The format will be Sabrina VS Lrb, Chibi-Master VS Anomaly.

I picked up the pen and began to shakily fill out the questionnaire. It took some time, as it is very difficult to write legibly while free-floating in white space. After much cursing, the finished product read: [B]Name:[/B] Stan Harbor [B]Age:[/B] 26 [B]Gender:[/B] Male [B]Home Planet:[/B] Earth [B]Appearance:[/B] Seeing as how this is the largest space with which I have to write, I would take this opportunity to inform whoever it may concern that I will be contacting my lawyers as soon as I regain my bearings. Floating in white space does not agree with my weak stomach. I am a tall man, at six feet four inches. I am just as thin as I am long. Most of my friends make fun of my lanky physique, but that doesn't matter much to me. I wear thick-lens glasses, which are partially obscured by my mop of dark hair. All in all, I am the stereotypical visage of a graduate student of literature. [B]OC: Hope this is alright, Lrb. Contact me if I did something bad...[/B]

Alright. We have a few updates to go over. Friday the 23rd is the final day for voting. Voting will close at midnight, before Saturday. Also, as soon as I hear back from Lrb and get consent, we're going to begin what I like to call Round 1.2. Basically, we're going to do round 1 over again with four people. It's most likely going to be Sabrina VS Lrb, Chibi-master VS Anomaly. The winner of each round advances. Since that is going to give us 5 contestants in round two, unless my math is wrong (which it always is), round two might have to deviate from the norm... I'll have the round 1.2 matches up as soon as I hear from Lrb. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

Just throwing this out there. What would everyone think if we let Lrb compete in the place of either Charlie Bravo, Monarck, or Mr. Maul? We would be on a tight schedule, but I think we could make it happen. I would randomly select one of the matches, and just shove Lrb right in there. What do you all think? If no one checks this and/or responds by tonight, I'll send out some PMs. It's just that Lrb seems to want to play along, and the three of you defaults seem so distraught, I thought this would be a little band-aid for the situation.

[quote name='Magus']Heh, being a senior member... That's pretty obvious if you look at the old peoples profile. I think that's a little obvious that it has nothing to do with post count. But then again, I could be mistaken. [/QUOTE] I know at least one "senior member" on the boards that hasn't been around as long as I have. So who knows? Maybe they ask for it? Maybe it's a combo of time and posts?