The Beast's Lair Tanabata Exchange Contest! (2017)

[Kirby]

Last entry has been submitted.

[Seika]

If the Wall of Shame is empty, does that mean all four failures from last time redeemed themselves?

[Nacho the Doritosedge]

I know for a fact that

No

[Kirby]

We have a separate Wall of Shame for each contest. As of now only one of them has (partially) redeemed themselves.

[Rafflesiac]

Just got the chance to start reading, but

Four

I see that this writer is a poster of wealth and taste, possessing a sterling and uncommon wit.

Alright, Bonny & Clyde is a work of shitposting, heartwarming beauty. Whoever wrote this is my hero and my idol.

[Rafflesiac]

Shirou/Angelica starts awkward with some repetitively-paced purple prose, but it hits a flow just soon enough that I was left wanting for more.

0/10 no lewd though

Shirou/Rin/Saber (it's important that Rin's in the middle) was charming, and good, and sad, and a bunch of other stuff. Good work, writer.

Shirou/Illya 1 was sad and sweet.

Shirou/Illya 2 was also sad and also sweet and I'm glad it was comparatively lengthy.

Gilles/Jeanne Alter was rather charming, and- wait, what do you mean it was supposed to be a Jeanne Alter/Gudao lemon?

Scathach/hello? Hello? Wasn't there someone else supposed to be here? Well, here's to waiting for the rest of this.

[SpoonyViking]

I'll post my thoughts on the others later, but for now:

"Colour" is really, really good. All of the submissions put mine to shame, but this one, especially. I look forward to finding out who wrote it!

[Raylen Cypher]

Shirou/Angelica starts awkward with some repetitively-paced purple prose, but it hits a flow just soon enough that I was left wanting for more.

Imma come forth and say I wrote it and as the title suggested, there will be a continuation.

And I'm rewriting it, I'm not going to use present-tense anymore. It's not doing me any favors to continue using it.

0/10 no lewd though

Better make it ?/10 for now.

Gilles/Jeanne Alter was rather charming, and- wait, what do you mean it was supposed to be a Jeanne Alter/Gudao lemon?

D:

It's incomplete, so I'll hope...

[Kirby]

Voting thread's up: http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread...ng-and-Judging

[Kirby]

And with that, we're done.

In first place, we have Colour with 13 points!

Tied in second place, both with 12 points, we have Last Winter and Bonny & Clyde & the Eight-Hour Adventure!

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you all for a successful contest!

[Seika]

Well that's a stupid winner. Why would you do that, voters? You're all disgraces.

In seriousness, congratulations to the other medallists, and to everyone for managing to give us a Wall-of-Shame-free round. And a deserved thanks to Kirby for running the thing.

I've already owned up to my 'fic and my pool, so that's out of the way, but I'd love to be able to thank the Last Winter writer for their response. (So good!)

I'd like to have filled out a couple of my vignettes more, and I think TwilightsCall should have been less hesitant about calling me out for how short some of them were, but I think they're probably pretty fixed in my mind at this point, and I won't be able to expand them in a decent fashion. So I'll likely just run a last eye over them, maybe add a couple of sentences, and then throw up a thread and AO3/ff.net posts sometime tonight. Despite some of my shortcutting, I did enjoy writing this a lot, and it's been a terribly long time since I did anything of this length, so I'd love to discuss and ramble about it.

[SpoonyViking]

So, a few additional thoughts on the fics.

Bonnie & Clyde / Last Winter
It was very hard deciding between both of these for second place. Usually, I'd favour "Last Winter" because I do enjoy melancholic pieces and this fic is genuinely poignant - with the added bonus of building on canon, even! In the end, I favoured "Bonnie & Clyde" partly because I feel comedy is harder to do well, but mostly because it achieved the feat of being actually funny while using a character whose design and concept I genuinely despise! (Blackbeard, if it wasn't obvious.)

Galatea Project Prologue
I know "Prologue" is right in the name, but I do think it could stand on its own as-is if you wished to do so. My main suggestion is to add some more meat to it, though; since both characters tend to be more laconic - particularly Angelica -, you need the actions and the scene to pull most of the dramatic weight.

Colour
In retrospect, it's obvious this was written by Seika: the British spelling, the literary references (I mean, there's a freaking reference to the Welsh Triads!)... And yes, I'm saying that in a forum full of extreme nerds from all over the world, you're even more of a nerd, Seika. :-P Seriously, though, this was my prompt, and I am extremely happy with how it turned out!

The only criticism I have (and it's one even I'm not so sure about) is toward the ending: I feel the contrast between their present circumstances and a happier past isn't strong enough considering that, overall, the three had a very good life together (plus, it feels a bit sappy), not to mention it's not as powerful an ending as the one of the previous part (with Rin finally allowing herself to cry once she learns Shirou never made the contract); on the other hand, that last part really is well-written, and ending it at the previous scene would have made the ending a bit too Shirou-centric, which isn't the story you wrote. So, yeah; it's something that felt a bit amiss when I read the fic, but not something which really dragged anything down, and even now I'm not so sure if it should be criticised or not, so let me reiterate that this was an excellent fic, Seika, and that I really enjoyed what you did with my prompt!

(Also, don't be mean to poor Sakura. I wouldn't put it past UBW!Rin to keep tabs on her sister, even if they never fully repair their relationship. :-P)

All One Can Do
To be honest, I just don't buy Shirou and Illya in a romantic relationship, and that certainly coloured my impressions of this fic. I also feel that Illya probably wouldn't be so much of a submissive partner to Shirou even if she was nearly on her deathbed. That said, it's not badly-written at all, so feel free to ignore my observations. :-)

In the Silence
I like this fic, I think it's built on a strong idea, and I'm a sucker for parent-child relationships done well; I just feel it needed a bit more development than it actually got. (And yes, I'm aware my shade is a lot blacker than yours. :-P)

As Not Requested
I know it's incomplete and that the prompt asked for Gudao X Jeanne, but as it stands, it's a good Gilles X Jeanne fic. Short, but sweet. :-)

[TwilightsCall]

As I mentioned before, In the Silence was my prompt. Thanks to the author, whoever you are!

Besides that, I wrote Last Winter. Thank you everyone who voted for it! And I'm glad you seemed to like it so much Seika. I feel like there was a bit more ironing out that the piece deserved, but I'm glad it was well received.

Thanks again Kirby for running the contest!

[Seika]

Spoony, I'm replying to you over in the thread I've made for the 'fic, if that's okay.

[SpoonyViking]

Spoony, I'm replying to you over in the thread I've made for the 'fic, if that's okay.

Sure, no problem! And before I forget, thanks a lot for the pointers on my own fic over at the voting thread. I see now what you meant by the unevenness of the writing and I'll be sure to revise it for the finished product.