Easy come, easy go...

[ffutures]

I've known for a couple of days now that the COA awards for The Key To Byzantium and for another winner were going to be withdrawn - in my case it was a character-centered award and the character doesn't actually appear until 4/5ths of the way through the story, and it turns out that the rules say that the character has to be the main focus of the entire story. Which makes things a bit difficult in the case of my story, where it takes several chapters for the first Buffyverse characters to appear on stage at all...

The announcement itself is here

http://www.tthfanfic.org/

The detailed (and in places hilarious) explanation of why this happened is here

http://forum.tthfanfic.org/index.php?topic=4775.0

As may be obvious from reading the latter, there is a right way and a wrong way to cope with stuff like this - I hope that I handled it correctly, as for the other author...

later: And the explanation thread has now got even sillier ;-)

Comments

[bastardsnow.livejournal.com]

That's too bad about how the other guy handled things. I think you handled it appropriately. In any event, good luck with the story for next year.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - it's a bit of a disappointment, but I was a little surprised it won in the first case, so I won't let it bother me.

The full story on the other withdrawn award is just hilarious. As you can probably guess, it wasn't one I'd voted for so I'm not going to mourn it.

[ggreig]

What the parent comment said.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well, it'd be nice but it's already an old story and I don't expect miracles.

[ebony-silvers.livejournal.com]

Marcus, as always, you're a class act.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Class dunce or class clown?

[ebony-silvers.livejournal.com]

:P

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Marcus you are a gentleman.

Thanks for the link to the thread, though - it gave me the giggles - I mean isn't quarantining etc. exactly what moderators are for? And, personally, not only do I ot think they pull stories up too often for poor spelling and grammar, but think they should do it more often!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's a weird one, but it's probably a good thing it has happened this way, ought to lead to a bit of tightening-up for next year. If it hadn't been for the other story I think that the award for Key... wouldn't have been challenged, since it got more than twice as many votes as its competition, but once they started looking at eligibility for one story there was really no choice other than to apply the rules strictly to all stories.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Marcus you are a gentleman.

...a scholar and an
Acrobat!

[sirernest.livejournal.com]

He's gonna form his own league any day now. Better fill out the application form already.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The Evil League of Evil, of course...

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

OMG Poniez !!!


If I was allowed to send the whole thing to F-W*nk, I might well do so.
Someone once told me that, when the top of the hole passes your eyeline, it's best to Stop Digging !! Mr.M might have profited by this wisdom.

You, on the other hand, remain calm and possessed throghout what cannot have been other than a sticky few moments. Thank you for keeping the Stiff Upper Lip we brits are meant to have (I'd have whimpered -- in private, but ... )

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

If I'd only won by a couple of votes I would have refused to accept once I'd realised that it was a rules violation. As it was, the gap between my story and the two runners-up was so embarassingly wide that I wasn't sure what to do, apart from making sure that the mods knew I would step down if they wanted. So a story that got less than a quarter of the vote ended up getting the award - as it happens I think that it's the better of the other two, so I'm not complaining.