The Beast's Lair Secret Santa Contest! (2017)

[ItsaRandomUsername]

How degenerate.

I live for this.

[Rafflesiac]

Jeanne Can't Make Any Friends stabbed me in the back, but it was still good. Give it points or no, give it points or no...

[Dullahan]

the world returns to a recognisable order

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Jeanne Can't Make Any Friends stabbed me in the back, but it was still good. Give it points or no, give it points or no...

The eternal debate.

[Rafflesiac]

c'mon people 15 minutes left before kirby puts some shame in your game chop chop drop what you got

[Rafflesiac]

Hand over the fics and no one gets hurt you shitters

[Kirby]

[Rafflesiac]

Reading The Great Beauty put a smile on my face. I'll definitely be giving it top marks; it was immediately engrossing, and Leonardo and Lisa were immediately welcoming perspectives.

You've done a good job.

[Nacho the Doritosedge]

Oh god, reading this thread after like three months is kinda reminding me of something that upset me.

I never actually blacklisted prompts before, because like haha don't be a pussy tough it out write what you're given, but god damn I was so massively upset seeing prompt pool number 9, where only like one of them can even sort of be called a prompt, I had to fold.

Whoever wrote pool number 9, like, I get it, you wanted to join and you were low effort about your prompts and wrote literally whatever but do you get what a prompt is supposed to do? It's an idea for a fic. It's supposed to stimulate the brain or like fire off a spark of inspiration or something. You give a basic idea, characters acting out a scene, or a new character entering a setting, or a setting with something about to happen in it, you try to give a basis that another writer can expand on. You give them a foothold, so they can start their own climb.

The first prompt is simple, but it's fine. Here are two characters, a timeframe, what they do, write it. Ok, sure. The prompt gives the basic idea, and the writer expands on it to turn it into a story. The writer gives it its own identity, but it never loses the prompt's idea.

But then like

Saber/Iri fluff.

Ok, I can infer that the setting you had in mind was zero. Saber and Iri do something during zero that is fluffy. Alright, ok. What else? Is there any idea to this, any basis, any concept you'd like me to push off of? Anything other than "Ehhhh, these two, write it" for me to work with?

It's not impossible, I'd even say it's rather easy to fulfill that prompt. But absolutely nothing of what is in the fic that will be written will be inspired by the prompt. Everything in the fic, from beginning to end, will have come 100% from the writer, to the point where you could have easily erased the prompt from existence and told them "WRITE ANYTHING" and the fic could have come out.

The prompt doesn't spark the imagination. It doesn't inspire anything. It's two characters with an implied setting (Which isn't even set in stone with both of them being in FGO), with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE.

It's a lazy prompt and a bad prompt and if someone worked with it and expanded on it and made a respectable fic out of it, I don't actually know, I didn't read the entries yet, good on you. You deserve a gold star because this prompt doesn't deserve any of the credit for the end result.

THREE WORD PROMPT. I was upset. I'm still upset, evidently.

Ouf.

Ciel fluff. No hetero.

I like that you specified no hetero when I was already sent into a void of thought by what could have been the legendary two word prompt. Still, no context, no possible actions, no timeframe, no, uh, anything at all actually. Just "write ciel."

Someone please be truthful with me. Did anyone read this prompt, or the other above, and get smitten with inspiration? Did it spark your imagination?

Is this a good prompt, can someone defend this?

I asked some friends and like 3 out of 3 of them said Ciel playing with an animal, which I'm pretty sure isn't even the kind of fluff that was intended. It's still admirable, considering they had nothing to work with, but the fact this was so nothing that it led to the generic idea of "cute girl aimlessly playing with animal" off of three different people should be a statement.

I'm not trying to personally attack anyone with this, and like I said earlier I get it, you wanted to join in, be part of it all and made some low effort stuff but please, there is a difference between low effort and NO effort. When I saw your prompt pool I was genuinely upset and I blacklisted it because these other prompt pools have ideas that people actually thought about (for like maybe 30 seconds looking at some of these whew). I just didn't want to deal with a pool that was basically nothing when I could be writing some nutcase's idea of like, uh, "authority figure (of your choice) day-in-the-life, caught in bureaucracy before you knew them as a servant who just blows things up lmao" instead. He's giving me a vague idea lot of freedom but he's giving me an idea and a direction to work with!

And that's just how I feel about it. I'm not asking for masterwork prompts, I just don't want no-effort-at-all prompts.

[Polly]

Man, I wish I had the energy to write prompts as extensive and detailed as your bitching about them.

[Snow]

Goodness, I don't know where to start.

First of all, I'll assume from what you wrote that you didn't get the pool yourself. So I fail to see how this is your hill to die on, and don't give me the excuse that you're actually pedantic enough yourself to care so much about a fanfic contest prompt form, jeez.

Second of all, you're posting this now, when all is said and done. The kindest thing I can say to that is that it'll get you nowhere.

Third of all, this is a Secret Santa. Even though most took the usual style of prompting and rolled with it, that doesn't change the fact that this is a request contest when you get down to it. And being a request, it's allowed to be as detailed or as brief as the people in charge would allow, so Kirby.

Fourth of all, I'm sure we all blacklisted something, either explicitly or by writing out a list of do-not-wants, for whatever reason. Writing is time consuming and naturally it's better to not write about things you don't like or don't care about, since you're not getting paid for this. But tooting out what you blacklisted is rude in a way that's not conductive to conversation and won't get you anywhere. I might jokingly say a pool's taste in porn is degenerate but if I make sure I don't get a pool I dislike and someone else gets it and happily writes it then what the duck is the point of me saying what it was? It's rude towards the prompter, towards the person who writes the pool, and achieves nothing but make people feel mad or bad and see me as the unfun at parties buzzkill sort of person I am. There is a reason these things are done via PM.

Nachos dear, I wish you happy holidays, and hope that the time you spent writing this wall of a complaint while you could've been enjoying time with your loved ones or eating some delicious food or playing in the snow isn't now irretrievably lost for you.

Mine isn't fortunately, as I was writing my wall of a complaint to your wall of a complaint while snuggling with my kitten.

[Five_X]

I just want constructive and interesting conversation about the stuff people wrote, is that too much to ask?

[Rafflesiac]

Okay but where are the missing fics.

[Mooncake]

Yeah, who would do that?

[Historia]

Okay but where are the missing fics.

I stole them.

[Five_X]

Okay but where are the missing fics.

We're then talking about them more than the ones that were completed? Seems like the wrong way to do things.

[Rafflesiac]

For one, I already have, and will continue to, talk about the fics that I read.

For two, there's nothing wrong with wanting to see an outline, an excuse, anything about the stories you were promised in exchange for your hard work.

[Nacho the Doritosedge]

Nachos dear, I wish you happy holidays, and hope that the time you spent writing this wall of a complaint while you could've been enjoying time with your loved ones or eating some delicious food or playing in the snow isn't now irretrievably lost for you.

Mine isn't fortunately, as I was writing my wall of a complaint to your wall of a complaint while snuggling with my kitten.

Thank you for the holiday wishes, my holidays were actually wonderful. I got to see a lot of people I didn't usually see, I got the satisfaction of a hard day's work and a had a very nice phone call with my grandmother. My wall of complaint didn't take more than a quarter of an hour after the rest was said and done, a little post before bed, but it's something I felt I had to say while I remembered I wanted to, because if I never said anything, the prompter may not have known people (or a person, rather) were upset. Communication is important. If I were to make something bad and make someone upset, I'd rather they let me know rather than keep their silence and let me do it again.

You say it was rude of me, and you're right. I did write the post in a tone that was very exasperated and unhappy. Because that's exactly how I felt looking at not the worst pool in kirby's contests ever, but by far the laziest. It was rude of me, but also I feel it was rude of them to refuse to spend more than five seconds writing their prompts, where other prompts in the pool have effort and thought poured into them.

You might call it pedantic of me to say a prompt should at least try to give a foothold or spark the imagination. You can call it whatever you want. I'll stand by it. It doesn't even have to be a huge paragraph. It doesn't even need a huge amount of stuff to it. Writing a prompt that can do the aforementioned is not hard, and doesn't truly require more than a sentence. And if you don't have the energy or the will to write three full sentences, perhaps you shouldn't join a writing contest.

You're right, this might get me nowhere, but hey. I got a couple replies. I will let the subject die though. Happy holidays, happy new years if I don't post before then Great job to everyone on the contest, and to those on the wall of shame, well I can only say, uh,

Mooncake where's my damn fic

[Raylen Cypher]

For two, there's nothing wrong with wanting to see an outline, an excuse, anything about the stories you were promised in exchange for your hard work.

I agree with Raff, even if it's a situation where your hands were tied by inevitably means.

Adding onto what Nacho brought up, in the case of gaining a pool with little information to go off, I think it would be fine to use Kirby as a medium of communication (which maintains the anonymity of the Secret Santa concept) for further elaboration on the lack of or clarification of the obtained pool.

Finally while it's obviously meant as a joke, there should be some refrain on making those kinds of remarks towards the missing fics especially from those on the Wall of Shame. It's obnoxious and definitely on grounds for trolling.

[Bird of Hermes]

I agree with Raff, even if it's a situation where your hands were tied by inevitably means.

Adding onto what Nacho brought up, in the case of gaining a pool with little information to go off, I think it would be fine to use Kirby as a medium of communication (which maintains the anonymity of the Secret Santa concept) for further elaboration on the lack of or clarification of the obtained pool.

On one had someone could argue prompts that are only a few words long don’t give enough for people to work with but on the other hand some could say it allows the writers be get more creative so I agree that means of communication sounds good if Kirby was ok with it.

As for the Wall of Shame, I took down the second chapter of that one Nightingale fic for a rewrite like a year(?) ago and haven’t had time to do anything on it so I’m hardly one to comment.

- - - Updated - - -

I should actually rewrite that at some point