NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FitzTheRuke" data-source="post: 8173223" data-attributes="member: 59816">[spoiler="Comments and Reflections"][USER=57112]@Gradine[/USER] 's judgement does not surprise me, really. I knew I was taking risks with my ingredient uses. Some I felt were clever, and others I knew were lacking. Some got lost a bit in editing, too.Here's my thinking on them:Psychic Scream - Originally, the dance club was named the Psychic Scream. At one point, I decided that it was too on-the-nose (and I remembered judges saying that using the ingredients as names always brings the question: "Why couldn't they be named something else?") In addition, I tried at one point for a pass that didn't actually use the words of the ingredients, but invoked them anyway. This was too hard, and I felt that judges might miss my references entirely. In the end, I think I should have left the name, and kept the DJ too... I understand that technically, the speakers are a Sonic Scream (and I seem to have used the word Screech instead - this is still a remnant of my attempt to leave the words out. I should have fixed it, I think.Former Parrot - I started with Jim being the only former gang-member, but with him giving out missions, he seems like he's still involved, really. I like how this one worked out. On top of Agata, Brock, and Jim, being Former members of the Parrots - If Pete the Parrot gets killed, then he's an ex-parrot, Python style.Pink Unicorn - When the Dance Club was the Psychic Scream, the Karaoke Bar was named the Pink Unicorn. Maybe I should have kept that too. Either way, I knew that it had to be more than just a name, so I came up with Amiko-Chan the popular anime unicorn as a karaoke prize. (And the <s>Sonic</s> Psychic (well, head-hurting, at least) attack from the DJ at the Dance Club.)Awakened Witch - I just thought it was funny that you had to wake Agata up (you'd still have to wake her, even if you used a key to get in!)Time Stop - Professor Black's machine was the first idea that came to my head for the whole thing.Pregnant Moment - There's basically one of these every time the machine shuts off, right?Swoop - One of my drafts was far more linear than what I ended up with. At that point, the first time stop had a PC noticing a Seagull diving for a clam in frozen mid-swoop. I lost that when I couldn't figure out how the PCs were still moving with Time being Stopped.Turtles All the Way Down - The term may have been co-opted by Flat Earthers, but it predates them. I had Prof. Black quoting Hume and using the concept to describe how time works (a remnant of that is still in the text) but I couldn't get it to make enough sense (or to be clear enough) that I trusted that anyone would get it. So I went for the obvious. They're turtles. They gotta go all the way down. Yeah, I know, it's not the most inspired, but I think it's cute.I really enjoyed writing my first entry in this competition, but for the second one, I got too serious about it (in my head) and (as I mentioned before) I took all the fun out of it for myself by second-guessing everything I was writing, all the time, for how it might be judged. I barely made it through, so I decided this time that I was just going to enjoy myself, and if it costs me, so be it. I think I pulled that off, in that I loved every minute of writing that one. Sure, I probably could (and should) have done another pass specifically looking at my ingredient use (I've done that since, and I do see a whole lot that I could fix). Didn't help that I posted my second-to-last draft, too.I'm glad everyone seems to have enjoyed the thing, even if it doesn't win in the end. (Still a chance!)[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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