So... the Writing Circle (link: http://www.fictionpress.com/~thewritingcircle) is a group of talented writers who gather together and write stories. The twist is, though, that the stories based off of five random elements chosen by the group and, once all entries have been, well, entered, they all vote on the winner. A brilliant idea, is it not?. However, since this is entirely their idea, all praise should be sent their way for being totally awesome and creative and stuff, and it's just been adapted for a smaller group's purpose.

And now I (Snarky) and copying and pasting most of what Melomancer posted for Challenge I, because all the same things apply.

The Rules (as originally established by Evil Mina):

1-The arbitrator of the challenge must set a deadline for the challenge. He or she has the right to impose additional limits just to mix things up.

2-Anyone who wants to enter must submit a random item or element in this thread. Your item can be a physical object or an abstract concept, as long as it's something that can conceivably exist in FFIV; be creative, but try not to fall for the trap of thinking that random and nonsensical equals original. (Flying purple cheese-eating spotted chipmunks? Not the best idea.)

3-If you submitted an item, you must then write an FFIV fanfic including all the submitted elements by whenever the due date is. (The arbitrator can't enter.) Don't post your fic on the message board; rather, post a link to your entry in this thread.

4-Anyone, participants and non-participants, may then vote on his/her favourite story for up to two weeks after the final deadline. Voting will be done by SECRET BALLOT! PM me--it MUST be by PM, to avoid sockpuppets--from your fanfiction.net account. One vote per person, obviously. However, the arbitrator and all contestants MUST vote to make it fair. Any contestant who doesn't vote is disqualified.

5-No voting for yourself. Anyone who ignores this rule and votes for his/her own story anyway is disqualified, because if you're not smart enough to follow such a simple rule, chances are your story isn't that great to begin with. Anyone caught using a sockpuppet to vote for him/herself will be disqualified and then tied to a railroad track. Also, please vote honestly (i.e., for the person whose story you think is the best, and not for the person whose story has zero votes and so is less likely of competing with you for first place). It's supposed to be for fun.

6- The arbitrator posts the total number of votes that each story got--unless anyone objects--but not who voted for whom. The winner is the one whose story gets the most votes (duh). In case of a tie, the arbitrator chooses the winner between the highest placers.

7-The arbitrator thinks of a (free) prize to give to the winner. The winner becomes the arbitrator of the next challenge.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

The Challenge is Over... with apparently no stories entered.

SPECIAL RULES & CHALLENGE ITEMS & STUFF:

Your fic CANNOT be about Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Rydia or Edge. They can be included, but they should not be the main characters or main object of discussion in this fic.

However, all stories MUST INCLUDE AT LEAST FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING things (Remember to submit one if you want to join):

~ egg shells

~ a melody

~ a wedding ring

~ bare feet

~ starry night

~ plague

PARTICIPANTS:

~ Melomancer

~ Abyrae

~ Lunar Kweh

~ Reddo Meijisu

~ SpacemanSpiff

[edit: Starting date is May 20th]

[edit2: You must include a minimum of five of the items.]

[edit3: You must finish your story by June 22]

[edit4: No one submitted any stories on time.]

Good luck!

My element shall be a wedding ring.

Good luck everyone! :)

My element is... ah... bare feet!

Welcome one and all!

My element is a starry night. (or is that too... vague?)

Welcome, Reddo Meijisu!

You're entered, as well. =) Best of luck!

(i can do that, right?)

O.o

How... erm... cheery. XD

Velcome to zeh 'hallowed tournament', Spiff!

BY THE BY: (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

Do you think y'all can deal with writing in six items, or would you prefer to be allowed to choose one or two of the itmes not to include?

Mm.. I wouldn't ask that, except that this is only the second one o' these, and I dunno if we want it to be /too/ hard. =)

Kvestion: Plague as in the Black Plague, or Plague as in the boss?

Challenge 2 officially begins today!

Please have your stories completed by:

Midnight on Friday, June, 22, 2007.

(Midnight EST.)

Good luck, everyone!!

...Intriguing. Black plague + FFIV = ? Hmm...

And here go the plotbunnies.

That's not strictly true. =) The story can't be about the characters, but it can include them, of course, and if they happen to talk about monsters they faced, for instance, well... that wouldn't be against the rules.

Aha.

Sorry. I'll, er, shut up, now. Welcome back, Spiffy!

Sorry, I should have been more specific. *eyeshift*

How's everyone coming?

Just a reminder that you've got two weeks and a bit less than a day to finish your stories and post them.

Hope everything's going well, since Melo's the only one who replied to my inquiry last time, alas. Heh. Ah well. Y'all are probably busy, and that's fine. In other news...

It's summer~!

Ahaha. Just had to... get that out. X3

...I've barely started.

*procrastinate procrastinate*

By the way, regarding your prizefic, Snarky, is there anything specific you want to read about FuSoYa? I've hit a block writing him, and I'm not sure if it's leaning towards what you were thinking of.

Anyway, back to the writing desk for me :P.

Don't walk on thistles in bare feet. It hurts. -was stupid enough to do so earlier, though she insists it was unintentional-

Anyway... any advice for getting stuff done should not be gotten from me, as I tend to procrastinate for as long as possible. Take my term paper for English this year: I wrote that entirely the day before and morning of the day it was due. =)

So, yeah. Um. Nothing to say on that. Maybe, if you have block, try writing a different part of the story? Or... um... just write some drek out that's really bad and move on, then go back and fix it later? Or... play video games? Or... draw! Yeah, draw stick figures of what you intend to happen with the story. XD

Melo: Um... No, there wasn't anything specific I wanted to read, except maybe... Lunarian braiding parties? Um. I dunno. XD I pulled that out of a hat, once. We were having a writing thingy at school where we pulled things out of hats to write about, and I happend to get 'braids' and 'party' and 'lizard.' This turned into a braiding party for lizards... who braided their tails together. It was an extraordinarily stupid piece of work, and I burned it. Muahah.

If you need an extension of a day or two, that's fine, but try to have 'em in on time.

You know what? I hate plotbunnies. They breed and breed and breed and then, just when you need them, they DIE.

As for my fic, I'll probably be able to get mine in, however the prizefic might take a little longer :/. Hope that's fine.

I get the feeling I'll end up not finding a title. xD

When it's done right, that is.

Anyway, A'right. As I said, if you need extra time, take it, but... don't take forever. xD

An' Melo, it's fine about the prize-fic!

Hmm... rabbit stew... must try that. After the challenge, at least.

I'm disappointed. No one posted before the deadline!

I'll give you guys until Sunday evening / Monday morning to post a link to your story (unless the site's down or something) on this board.

I know two of you said you needed extra time, but what about the other three of you?

Reddo Meijisu...? SpacemanSpiff...? Melomancer...?

I know everyone has lots going on in life. Believe me, I do, too. Hell, if I'd been writing a fic during this time, I don't know if I would've been able to finish due to circumstances in my life, but all the same, if you can't make the deadline, it would be a bit more than nice if you'd let us know.

You don't have to go into detail of why you can't make it, but just say that you can't, and that's enough. All right?

I don't know if I'll be able to finish mine at all.

If I were to post anything, it would be crap anyway--I haven't been able to focus on my writing at all over the past month or so.

If I can get something in, I will. But I don't think it'd be ready by Monday.

I really am sorry about all this.

I'm just... O.o confused and saddened by the fact that, despite what seemed to be good participation, no one but no one has actually met the deadline.

Does everybody need another week or something...?

Maybe they're on vacation?

I would have been able to post mine before midnight if some drunken idiot didn't knock down some power lines with his car. -.- We got the electricity back about 10 minutes ago after 4 hours.

Quebec National Day: When practically everyone gets drunk and does stupid stuff.

At any rate, I will be able to post my entry before dawn. :)

Haha. Sounds like fun! I completely understand that. We're located at the tail end of a crappy power grid, so we get power surges and random outages all the time. Terribly annoying, I must say. It doesn't help matters that we have active wildlife around here, of course.

Why, just a couple weeks ago, a racoon knocked our power out for a day or so by frying itself on a transformer and blowing it.

Anyway... for most Americans, school was out a couple weeks ago, maybe the eighth at the latest. My school happened to let out extra early, and it was officially done on the first.

Anyway... Vacation... yeah, that might be so. I didn't think of that. Hmm...

Sorry about the raccoon thing. We had one burrow through our roof and take up residence in our attic at one point. xP

Heh. Besides, we have a generator, so it's all right - when the generator is working, of course. But we've also had that happen - racoons in the attic, I mean. Because we live across the street from a state park, people come up here and dump racoons. These coons then come across the road to our place and make a mess of things. It is a constant war with them and the groundhogs.

You know what?

The first person to post a story will be the winner and the arbitor of the next challenge.

All contestants have had an equal amount of time to write a story, and the rules of the contest are such that they favor no one. Furthermore, it had a deadline, and that deadline has passed, technically meaning that no one qualifies. When a contest has a deadline, then part of that contest is meeting that deadline, and if you can't meet that deadline, then you have failed a part of the contest. True, the contest might not be judged solely on the timing, but it is, nevertheless, a part of it.

Therefore, as I said, I think it’s perfectly fair.

Since no one qualifies, as the deadline and extended deadline have already passed, the closet person to qualifying would be the first person to post his or her story. Ergo, that person would win.

Fair is following the rules, and fair is holding everyone to the same standard, and if time is part of that standard, well then, so be it.

If you don’t like that, fine. It’s not like I or anyone else can control what you think or feel, nor can we control what you do. So, the choice to post or not is yours.

Me? I’m trying to do this fairly and according to the rules – rules that say if you don’t have a story in by the deadline, then it doesn’t qualify.

I fully understand that it is not always possible to meet deadlines, and I fully understand that you may have a lot of trouble writing something. I’ve been in both situations before – not with fanfiction, but with schoolwork, but it’s a similar sort of thing… only this, at least, will not affect your transcript or anything like that.

All writers have had slightly over a month to write something. That is enough time, so let’s see what you have.

Rules are rules, yes, but it's not like we're competing for something like Miss Universe here. It's just a contest for fun.

I know it's probably a frustrating situation for you since no one met the deadline and almost all the contestants have not given any sign of life for a while now. For that, I apologize because I know I'm way past the deadline, and it wasn't my intent to hurt anyone's feelings. Heck, if I were in your shoes now, I'd be annoyed too, and since I'm over-emotional, I'd probably be throwing a fit.

I just don't want to risk hurting anyone else's feelings, that's all.

And on that note, I'm off to catch a few hours of sleep. If someone posts their story before I wake up and is declared the winner, congratulations. (And no, this isn't sarcasm.)

And I wouldn't be offended if you posted, Abyrae. Thanks for being considerate.

Sorry, Snarky. Looks like I made a royal mess of things...

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