Otaku Idol: Final Round Voting

[Charles]

At long last, we've reached the final plateau of our competition. Two contestants have put up submissions (despite having relatively little experience with snow), but only one will walk away [i]The[/i] Otaku Idol.

As usual, the public can participate in the selection process via poll. Excluding our judges' votes, they will be the only votes considered official. Votes posted within this thread will not be counted towards deciding a winner. This thread should be limited to relative comments and constructive criticism.

The public vote will count as one judge vote. Which, of course, means that the public majority choice could become the swing vote.

So, without further hesitation, let the voting commence!

[Ares]

I think that this will be a good Otaku Idol event. It's going to be fun voting, and I can't wait to see who [i]The[/i] Otaku Idol will be. It's so exciting! This is truly going to be great!

[conpiracymonki]

[b][size=1]
I vote for Miss Asphy because I just thought the way she did her description was childishly funny and innovative ^_^

Deedlit's entry was good too, but it just seemed like your average poem-type thingy, really.[/b]

Oh, and I didn't post because I couldn't think up anything that was worth standing upto those two, lol. (I'm always last minute -.-)[/size]

[Avaris]

High five for Asphy!!

I vote for her as she communicated the piece of writing better than Deedlit, who was almost too informal in her writing.

Three thumbs up, Asphy!

[Braidless Baka]

Lady A got my vote too ^_^

I guess Deedlit's writing lacked a certain... I dunno... I guess I always imagine a snowstorm to be glittering and mysterious, and Deedlit's writing was basically a text-book kind of thing. Well done to the both of you, but Aphsy walked away with it.

Drat, my tardy timekeeping ~_~;; I had an idea and everything! ^_^;;

[Deedlit]

[color=009966]I voted for Lady A too. ^_~ My dull expository thing pales in comparison to hers.

Congrats, Lady A! [/color]

[Lady Asphyxia]

[size=1]Actually, Deedlit, I was going to do something like yours originally, but then I saw your entry, and I realised I needed something completely different to stand a chance!

Besides, I'm not the best at writing anything but fiction like what I did there, so it wasn't really a matter of choice. ^.^"[/size]

[Baron Samedi]

Asphy..... I loved yours. That was so well done, really clever. I like how you took a lateral approach to the idea. Deedlit, yours was good, very descriptive, but Asphy's seemed to be better because she had a more novel way of going about her presentation. Congrats.

[Deedlit]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Lady Asphyxia [/i]
[B][size=1]Actually, Deedlit, I was going to do something like yours originally, but then I saw your entry, and I realised I needed something completely different to stand a chance!
[/size] [/B][/QUOTE]

[color=009966]lol I guess that next time I should make a memo to myself saying "never go first." :p;):cross:[/color]

[Guest Skyechild91]

Lady Asphyxia put a lot of emotion into hers. I have a simalar experiance, so I can relate. She also has great writing skills. I cast my vote her general direction.
;)

[Kyo no Ryu]

I voted for Deedlit bacause it was funny and short. I dont like to read long posts.

[Mitch]

[size=1] I liked Asphy's better. I sort of came in there thinking hers would be better, because I just consider her a good writer. Not that Deedlit's was horrible...but as I was reading, it was...too explanatory. That made it boring, since really, I have seen a snowstorm I suppose, and I already know what snow is and such...so that approach that Deedlit did just didn't work for me. But mechanically it was pretty good...Deedlit seems to have a nice grasp on that, and she also has some decent grasp of word choice. It's the way it was written that's just bleh.

As for Asphy's...I enjoyed it a lot more, since it told a story, and had characters, and all this gravitated me more into this story than Deedlit's. I found the use of apostrophes as quotation marks a bit odd, but it works for me.

I also would like to show you, Asphy, how you can make large chunks of conversation into paragraphs. Not that you really did this wrong...or anything, but some of it could be used like so:

The man had dark black hair, dark as a black pony. It stood on his hair so nicely, I just had to ask him about it, I couldn't help it. I tugged his collar with my hands, and he knelt down to me, looking me straight in the eye. "What is it dearie?" he asked, letting out a smile.

"I like your hair," I said.

"Ah yes, I really like my hair too. You see, my grandpa, he had grey hair all the time when I was growing up. And my Dad, he had dark brown hair, you know, that almost looked black but wasn't. Then my Mom, ah, she was a beauty, really was. She had really long, really black hair, like mine.

[Notice I don't end the quotations]

[Notice I use the quotations here]"She always had this nice smile, too. And you know who she got her black hair from? She got it from my grandpa, the one I'd thought had always had grey hair, and nothing less. Ah yes. She was a beautiful woman, god rest her soul." The man continued to look at me, but now, he was looking past me...looking across the room, at the wall.

It looked like he was remembering something.

That's that.

Hm...also, don't overuse commas. They really cause sentences to be choppy, and just because it's said "as a rule" you have to use a comma in a certain place, don't. This is your own writing, do whatever you want with it. Here, let me give you one sentence, and show you how it changes without the commas. This is right from your story.

"I remember several things she, in her wisdom, told me; the day ended at five o?clock in the afternoon, babies were made by fathers touching mummies? stomachs and wishing for a baby, Barbie Barbies was a game we played where we pretended to be Barbies. "

Notice how it's chopped, especially the part, "...She, in her wisdom, told me."

Now watch what I do to it.

"I remember several things she had told me in her wisdom; the day ended at five o?clock in the afternoon, babies were made by fathers touching mummies? stomachs and wishing for a baby and Barbie Barbies was a game we played where we pretended to be Barbies. "

Mm. It wasn't an extremely good example, but do you at least see the difference in the start? When I was reading it, it was really clipped, and I had to pause and figure out what you were saying since you had the comma splayed there in interruption like that. By just getting rid of that, and placing it differently in the sentence, I was able to get it to flow seamlessly and better.

Not that it's wrong to use commas zealously, but it just did not flow well with what you'd written to that point. It slowed it down more than helped.

I also didn't like the end of it. Either put some emphasis on it that it was sarcastic, or just get rid of it altogether. It doesn't rest well as an ending...it feels sudden more than anything, and doesn't have a final feel to it.

Otherwise it was above average, and I enjoyed it a lot more than Deedlit's.

I'm sorry if I'm being too critical...but you know the drill. I'm just being honest.[/size]

[Lady Asphyxia]

[size=1]Heh, Mitch, could you [i]be[/i] more blunt? Not that I'm complaining, mind -- I do know the drill.

Anyway, I do know how to make large chunks of dialogue into smaller paragraphs -- I'd picked up on it from my many romance novels, which actually use apostrophes as quotation marks. Bad habit, I guess. I didn't use that, though, because I couldn't really be bothered.

[quote]"I remember several things she had told me in her wisdom; the day ended at five o?clock in the afternoon, babies were made by fathers touching mummies? stomachs and wishing for a baby and Barbie Barbies was a game we played where we pretended to be Barbies. "[/quote]

As for that paragraph [may it be damned. I myself thought it was one of the weak points in the story], I don't like it much because to me at least, it loses quite a lot of the subtle sarcasm: it wasn't wisdom at all. [i]In her wisdom[/i], was supposed to be a slightly sarcastic, even ironic [if that's the correct term] comment.

It could have been better, though, I agree with that. [i]In her never-failing wisdom, she'd informed me of many things:etc[/i]. I don't know. I just think that the way you put it loses some of it's original meaning.

Or maybe it's just me.[/size]

[Mitch]

[size=1] It was just an example, heh. Yes, it does lose its focus on that one word, wisdom. By having that comma there, it allowed the reader to just pause: She had, in her wisdom, told me...blah blah blah. Wisdom's just more apparent with the commas seperating it.

And yes, I probably could have been more harsh, and went through it sentence by sentence, saying that this could be done and that could be done lol.[/size]

[Heaven's Cloud]

I guess it is time to cast my stone and submit my vote for the Otaku idol finalist. I?d like to thank all the contestants for competing; I appreciate you guys sharing your writing with us.

Deedlit, your story was very well written. Once again you took the initiative to post your work first, and I really respect that. However, I thought that Lady A?s entry was better. She did a little better job capturing the spirit of a snow storm and her writing seemed slightly more refined. So my vote goes to Lady A. Again, thank you both for participating and remaining in the competition.

[Mnemolth]

This competition has been a bit choppy, but it was still nice to see some people have a go. Hopefully, if there are any more such competitions (A poetry one may be interesting), it would run more smoothly. This one seems to have petered out at the end.

As for the final round, I think both finalists are deserving candidates for Otaku Idol.

Hmm...

I actually liked your piece Deedlit. I did not find it mundane at all.

"...it looks as though you're inside a wonderful drawing in which the artist accidentally knocked over his bottle of white-out..."

"... Or you can imagine it something like cold, soft, white, wet mud..."

"...the army of snowmen must return to their watery pools..."

These are all good in my opinion. They really capture the mood, texture and essence of a snowstorm. It was somewhat informal but formality was never a criteria. The important point was when I read your piece, you put me smack in the middle of a snowstorm. And that's what counts.

Lady Asphyxia, you piece was quintessentially you. :)

And no, that's not a bad thing. Actually, it's a good thing. For me anyway. I like your writing. I like its playfulness and its sincerity and its warmth. That doesn't mean it's completely honest or that it isn't laced with contrivances, but it seems to me, that it does come from somewhere inside, that indeed, it does come from [i]you[/i]. And that is good. A writer should leave some mark of themselves in their writing.

I found your piece illuminating in parts, but mostly, it was funny and fun. It was a joy to read. The trouble is of course, the way it was set up, I could not quite immerse myself in the middle of a snowstorm as I could with Deedlit's submission.

And at the end of the day, that's what was required.

[b]So my vote goes to Deedlit.[/b]

This might seem strange to some people, but I actually do think Lady Asphyxia had a better piece of writing. It was clever and inventive. Just not a better piece for the objective for this final round that's all.

[Brasil]

Describing a snowstorm...to someone who has never seen a snowstorm before...needs to be presented in a way that the reader will understand, that is to say, have knowledge of the comparisons used and metaphors and such.

Keeping that in mind, my Guest Judge vote for Otaku Idol winner goes to Deedlit.

Lady A's story, while entertaining, did not, in my opinion fulfill the requirement of this round. Lady A's entry featured non-relative descriptions, analogies that just didn't fit. The entry fell less along the lines of describing a snowstorm and more along the lines of...almost an Indian or Hindu creation myth, which, as we all know, isn't the most conducive to effectively teaching someone the reason why something happens, nor describing it.

That is why I vote for Deedlit; her story follows more familiar comparisons, metaphors, and analogies. Many more know what sand feels like than they can relate to a "lemonady icy-pole." I simply cannot relate to "lemonady icy-pole," and an aspect of a snowstorm is not conveyed with that term.

It's like this.

When explaining a totally new idea to someone, would you:

1) Want to give them a totally outrageous and unrealistic presentation of that new idea?

2) Or would you rather use real-life examples and draw upon the true physical world around the newcomer to further create a believable setting?

I say the latter.

My Guest Judge vote for Otaku Idol winner goes to Deedlit. Congrats. :)

[Sara]

[size=1]Despite the fact that I feel I have nothing to add to what's already been said about the pieces....Here goes.

It makes me laugh that both of you are describing something you've never seen...to someone else who's never seen it. You both did very well for that, heh.

I feel Miss Asphy's was the better piece of writing, and several of her descriptions were things I really liked: "It's the white of being lost," and the note that everything is muffled. It perhaps wasn't the most definitive description, but it was very pleasing to read.

It seems like Deedlit tried to tackle too much at once, and I sort of got lost in what she wrote. Some things she she mentioned but didn't explain could be confusing if I didn't know exactly what she was talking about. (Although I did love the "spilled white out" bit.)

So I suppose that's all I have to say.

My vote goes to Miss Asphy. [/size]

[Queen Asuka]

[color=hotpink][size=1]Well, I voted for Deedlit. Just for the plain and simple fact that she went first, therefore giving Asphy an unfair advantage over her.

Good job on taking the plunge first, Sam![/color][/size]

[foreverinfinity]

I vote for miss A! I don't know why, but her writing seems to have more of her "voice" in it. way to go!

[Inuyashafan418]

I liked Miss A's too! heh heh! I thought how she wrote it was very clever! =^-^=

[Charles]

Well, it's officially time to draw this to a close. The public vote doesn't appear to be changing anymore and I've allowed this to remain open long enough. Lady Asphyxia, despite winning by a clear margin in the popular vote, has only [i]just[/i] won the competition. So, in this case, the public has clearly been the determining factor in crowning her the Otaku Idol.

Much credit goes to everyone who participated: the contestants, the judges and the public. Deedlit and Lady Asphyxia both deserve a round of applause (figuratively speaking of course) for sticking through with this thing until the very end and making a competition out of it with their writing. Bravo to the two of you.

When I announce the next event, I'll be sure to offer my congratulations as a footnote. It's much deserved. ^_^