Alrighty then. After careful tabulation of the results I see a two-way tie for first and a three-way tie for second, even with extra votes and points factored in. I therefore enact my right as contest administrant to bust this tie up, old school style!
So the contenders for first place are Mandle and Frodo with six votes each, including their bonus point for voting. Mandle's work got five separate votes for best overall, but I refuse to allow myself to be swayed by popular opinion.
Frodo's piece had a much stronger character element, and several mentions for great word choice. I thought Mandle's was the cleverer story, but for me it loses the lustre of perfection due to the awkward sentence that starts it.
...I was chasing bounces on down the sloping road past the point I am able to follow it beyond, and yet, somehow, I do follow it.
To be honest, it was because of this sentence that I had to read the work twice to really feel that I understood it. I know as a writer you are really painted into a corner here with few words to set up a whole scenario, but I feel that Mandle tried to economise a bit too much here and lost some of us readers. On the flip side, the concept was brilliant and the execution, besides the first sentence, was inspired. The last sentence was simply haunting!
Frodo's story had great emotional intensity, and I liked how she dripped out the character development so that you only really understood the depth of the love felt by "him" for "it" by the end. The one draw back for me, however, was the last sentence.
Now his death is on my hands!
It just kills the pathos I was feeling for this clearly grief-struck character. She's already recognized that his death is because of her. Repeating this detail in the most important slot of a very short story seems to imply an egocentricism that I didn't detect through the rest of the piece. It seems to cheapen her feelings of guilt. But otherwise fantastic story!
So... Eeny meeny miny oh heck let's just say
Frodo wins! For your trouble you receive the golden "to the point" trophy of succinct awesomeness!
So let's sort out this mess at second. Mandle's in for sure at 6 votes, but KyriakosCH, Stupot, and CaptainD all had 5 votes and I feel obliged to vote for one of them to break the tie (I'm counting Stupot's runner up vote for CaptainD if anyone's having a hard time following my math).
I liked the puzzle concept of KyriakosCH's work, but I had a hard time following the logic. Sure, it's possible that an unhindered rook could move 7 spaces sideways, or seven spaces front or back. But it can't move to 14 unique places from
each of those spaces as a second move, due to the fact that other pieces must mathematically block its progress (certainly your own king and the second rook, but also the implied bishops and perhaps other pieces). This for me makes the connection between the clue and the rook less certain, somewhat spoiling the puzzle for me. The sense of indecision and hopelessness at the end also detract from the story's potential power as a clever riddle to be solved.
Stupot's creepy horror story worked for me as either a time-warp-inevitability or a cyclical-serial-murder-place. Bringing the camera as almost an afterthought really made the rest of the story work. The real-life plausibility of it adds to the power of the story.
CaptainD's story had a degree of emotional intensity that was lacking in the other second place finalists, but the cliché ending just killed it for me. C'mon! We all know it's hard: toss me a bone to chew over as I contemplate their predicament.
So I guess I'm voting for
Stupot, bringing him up to tie
Mandle with six votes. So to the two of you I present the coveted silver trophy of brevity.
Which means
KyriakosCH and
CaptainD share the bronze trophy of shortness!
Congratulations to all the winners!
Some quick thoughts on the other entries:
Mandle II: Buzz... Er, actually I don't actually have any thoughts on this one. Great gag entry, though!
Mandle III: The Other Dolphin... So I got that he was a serial killer being executed and that he was in his happy place for the final moment. The ending was powerful, being his final thought in this life. But... did he think he was a dolphin??
SilverSpook: Feetshot Hilarious, despite the lamentable state of online interactions between youth these days that it portrays. But... it seemed like aLpHaBruh was banned for being outed as a gayish incel hypocrite instead of for his abusive language toward the implausibly tolerant internet female? I'm not sure if that's social commentary on the hopelessness of achieving civil interactions on a chat stream or if you're challenging the relevance of modding at all. Anyway, the confused message seems to have cost you votes this time.
Sinitrena: Bear Your own comments show that you own the cliché. But, what if it was the bear dreaming of being a sweaty human all along...?
WHAM: Brevity Not enough love for this entry.
It was an awesome attempt to portray the confusion of battle in an action-packed 144 words. If only your contest adminstrant had the foresight to invoke a
Most Intense category.... Maybe Stupot's time warp murder SD card could help us out with that. What could possibly go wrong?
Wiggy I: Is the Glass Half Full, or Half Empty? I appreciated the philosophical perspectives, but not quite a story. Was the trailing off into drunken utilitarianism just a comment on the absurdity of over-thinking something? In the end I think it was a bit too esoteric for garnering votes from the masses.
Wiggy II: Climate Change - The Real Cause This struck a chord with a couple people. It certainly conveys a powerful message, but I think the reasoning is a bit simplistic (Malthus's followers are still waiting for the "inevitable" population crash 200 years on....). Consider this: if you are one of the seven billion mouths that need feeding then you're part of the problem. Given that humanity has yet to "solve" its overpopulation problem, but that solving it is certainly the desired solution (the alternative being the problem solving us), it stands to reason that the best shot humanity has is bringing fresher minds to the problem through a massive all-out around-the-clock propagation effort!
So that's it for me as contest administrator. I've spent all my power at the height of my glory, like some kind of salmon way up the creek.
We turn now to
Frodo to take us into the next round. I look forward to seeing you all back, with friends in tow, for the next exciting instalment of....
