The Beast's Lair Secret Santa Contest! (2016) [Submission Deadline 12/24]

[Sesto]

You could (should) still write that, Sesto. I would devour a story a like that.

lol

This contest was nice because the sense of obligation motivated me to finish, as I didn't want to be a dick who got someone to write my prompt without writing one myself. Didn't really matter if the end result was perfect, as long as I got something out.

Now that it's over I can go back to rewriting the same paragraph over and over for months on end, accomplishing nothing whatsoever

[Kirby]

A cue for redemption?

If you finish your unsubmitted entries, I take your name off the Wall of Shame

[Historia]

If you finish your unsubmitted entries, I take your name off the Wall of Shame

No, keep it up there.

[Kirby]

Voting's closed, and all the points have been tallied. Congratulations to our first place winner, Where the Circle Ends, with 20 points and six first place votes!

Coming in second and third, we have Paradox Eclipse with 11 points, and The Gift with 8 points.

Thank you everyone for participating and making this a successful contest!

[In-N-Out Double-Double & Animal Fries]

you're welcome

[Rafflesiac]

Good show folks, good show.

[You]

http://blogs.nrvnqsr.com/entry.php/3...aradox-Eclipse

And my prompt was the heist one. So thank you whoever turned that one on its head. And then took off Bram's head.
It was definitely refreshing to see Bram portrayed.

[Sesto]

Part-Time Heroes: I like the execution. Receptionist Saber Lily is cute, and Hector makes for an entertaining viewpoint character.

the receptionist was actually supposed to be Medea Lily.... haha.... though given the description I suppose it isn't too surprising you thought it was saber lily, there wasn't much to work off of

in retrospect, I probably had too many characters, resulting in a few of them being kind of barebones. originally I wanted to do a very localized introspective thing, but I couldn't figure how to work it with Hector (who I decided would be the pov very early on), so I added a bunch of other characters to fill the gap.

thanks all who shared their thoughts on it, and I'm glad you liked it Prix. it wasn't really my first choice of prompts I wanted to do, but in the end working out all the possibilities turned out to be pretty entertaining. Hector was fun to write, too

[Bird of Hermes]

I'm just glad I managed to disappoint everyone with mine.

That and I apparently won the award for best name.

[Huitante]

While usually away from fanfiction subforum, I think that contests are good thing, so I wanted to help in judging this one, but because of being busy with New Yeah could read only two of them in time

http://blogs.nrvnqsr.com/entry.php/3...aradox-Eclipse

And my prompt was the heist one. So thank you whoever turned that one on its head. And then took off Bram's head.
It was definitely refreshing to see Bram portrayed.

These two. I liked both

[TwilightsCall]

Thanks again for organizing this Kirby! It was a lot of fun, both getting to write (once I finally got around to doing it...) and having my prompt written. It's the first time I've done a 'fic-exchange' kind of thing, and I really enjoyed it!

The prompt I submitted was Shiki meets Kouma. As I mentioned in the judging thread, I actually really liked it and felt it was a shame that it was so short, but at the same time I realized that if it was much longer it would have really spoiled the kind of theme of the piece, at least as I perceived it. All in all, I'm very satisfied with the result, so thank you to whoever wrote it!

And the story I wrote was Where the Circle Ends. It feels odd to take credit for it since I feel like a lot of the credit should go to the person who submitted the prompt. And while it took a few tries to find a good place to end the story, I was very satisfied with where it ended up going. Thank you everyone for your votes and kind words about my piece, and thank you to whoever submitted the prompt for giving me such a gold mine to work off of!

[SpoonyViking]

Indeed! Thank you, Kirby, and thank you to whoever wrote my prompt! ...Actually, who was that?

I submitted The Gift. Honestly, I'm ecstatic it got so many positive reviews, it was basically my first time writing fiction in English. I also got lucky: when I first saw the list of prompts, I immediately brainstormed the core idea.
Who submitted that prompt, by the way?

http://blogs.nrvnqsr.com/entry.php/3...aradox-Eclipse

So, is there really such a thing as a Mystic Eye Collecting Train in the Nasuverse? Because that sounds awesome.

And the story I wrote was Where the Circle Ends.

Nice! By the way, TwilightsCall, I have a question: if Roa reincarnates into himself in the past with all his current memories and makes use of them, wouldn't that change the way things happened and also cause a paradox?

[Rafflesiac]

So I wrote Wanderers.

First time writing a lemon, and probably the last for a while given how half the time writing it I was aggravatingly clinical and the other half I was desperately striving to bullshit through a complete and thorough lack of experience. As for the more story-driven sections of it, I'm still not satisfied with what I wrote. I definitely could've addressed the theme of transience more, especially how both Shiki and Illya share short lifespans. However, thinking about the various similarities that they have (like Illya also being a white princess in a castle) was fun, and I could see in the prompt that there was a story worth telling.

There are things that I could've done better, but I think that I managed to convey in some way the relationship between the two. If I satisfied the prompt writer, then I've done a good job.

- - - Updated - - -

And finally, thank you Kirby for organizing a fun and successful contest!

- - - Updated - - -

So, is there really such a thing as a Mystic Eye Collecting Train in the Nasuverse? Because that sounds awesome.

It shows up in Case Files 4, I believe, and is a reference to a DAA mentioned back during the Tsukihime days.

[TwilightsCall]

Nice! By the way, TwilightsCall, I have a question: if Roa reincarnates into himself in the past with all his current memories and makes use of them, wouldn't that change the way things happened and also cause a paradox?

I would say no, because of the whole multiple worlds thing the Nasuverse has going on. At worst, it would branch off and create a new parallel world. In reality, that might even be what would happen if Roa were to incarnate into someone else anyways. The main fear of creating a paradox comes from having two souls of the same person existing at the same time. Since he "erased" his original soul and took its place, that avoids that paradox. From then on, since Roa's soul has changed properties, it would create a new parallel world, which would then allow all the implications of looping back to play out without worry of creating a paradox.

But we can write off a paradox without even appealing to parallel worlds. The evidence of that would be Archer in F/SN. If we accept the fact that any route in which Shirou meets Archer, he doesn't become Archer (or just look at HF/Normal End), then we have a pretty good example of going back in time not causing an issue.

If simply changing the past was enough to cause a paradox, it shouldn't matter that Archer is just a copy - the copy, who exists because of Future!Shirou, impacts Past!Shirou in such a way that Future!Shirou will never exist, thus the copy should never exist to influence Past!Shirou. Clearly this paradox doesn't create a problem for anyone, as Archer is summoned in every F/SN route we have.

And we of course avoid the double-souls paradox situation because the Archer that gets summoned isn't the real Shirou, it's just a copy of the soul recorded on the Throne.

In reality, I suspect even a double-soul paradox wouldn't really be an issue. But in the context of the story, there is of course no way for Roa or Ciel to have any idea what kind of paradox will pass and what kind will cause problems, and crossing the line whether intentionally or not would be fatal, so there's really nothing to do except minimize the potential for any paradox to occur.

In the end, I think all evidence we have seems to point to the fact that everything would be fine.

[Siriel]

And the story I wrote was Where the Circle Ends. It feels odd to take credit for it since I feel like a lot of the credit should go to the person who submitted the prompt. And while it took a few tries to find a good place to end the story, I was very satisfied with where it ended up going. Thank you everyone for your votes and kind words about my piece, and thank you to whoever submitted the prompt for giving me such a gold mine to work off of!

I haven't had time to read the fics yet because I've been busy since Christmas, but I'm pretty sure what you wrote deserves a lot more props than me throwing a random idea.

(I submitted the Lion King and Roa prompts, wrote At the end of duty and Quiet Lives.)

[Kirby]

Oh right, as for the prize, do you want an illustration of a scene from the fic, or a character?

[TwilightsCall]

Let's go with a scene from the fic.

Do you want me to pick a scene, or are you going to decide? I feel like the latter would be more appropriate, considering the theme of the contest, but I can pick out a scene if you'd like me to.

[ItsaRandomUsername]

I'm a little (pleasantly, obviously) surprised that TC did Where the Circle Ends. My gut told me it was Prodigal Son/Etc., but that was obviously wrong as heck.

Good fics both of those, either way.

[Kirby]

Let's go with a scene from the fic.

Do you want me to pick a scene, or are you going to decide? I feel like the latter would be more appropriate, considering the theme of the contest, but I can pick out a scene if you'd like me to.

Either or. If there's a part you really want drawn, I can certainly work with that, but otherwise I'll pick out something on my own

[TwilightsCall]

It's all you, great master!