I've been meaning to talk to
@Rune on the subject of ingredient-use. I didn't want to mention it before because I didn't want to seem like I was arguing with the judgements. (I'm not arguing at all, in fact, just pointing out how it feels from the other side).
Specifically, I want to speak on the subject of using ingredients more than once. You've said that you feel that it shows that the writer lacks confidence in their ingredient use. I disagree. I mean, it
could be that, but there's many other reasons that a writer could want to use an ingredient twice. I did it once, by accident (and only called attention to it as a joke!) I also
stopped myself from doing it in the final match, because I thought you might penalise me for it, when it came to me because both uses worked. Now, I know that if someone used an ingredient two or more times, and they were really
good, then you probably wouldn't give them flack for it, but I think you should reconsider your general aversion to it. (Just a friendly suggestion - do whatever you like.)
One more thing on that - as far as actual
confidence in our use of an ingredient goes: Only a fool would ever be fully confident in any of their ingredient use! Nearly
every single one of us in the latest competition had an ingredient use that was our
personal favourite that was thrashed by a judge. We
can't ever be confident. It's folly. How we see it, and how it's judged, just won't always line-up. I mean,
most of the time we'll get a judgement and think, "yeah, I could have done better there" (or we knew before judgement that it wasn't our best take) but we've all had it happen that a judge just doesn't see what we see. Luckily, that happens the other way sometimes too - where the judge
likes a usage that we were not as fond of.
At any rate, it seems reasonable to me to want to hedge your bets. Also, it could just be artistically interesting to use an ingredient more than once, just because you have two ideas that both work. (Again, I think that if both uses were good, you probably wouldn't dock someone for doing two, but you really seem to dislike the idea). Thoughts?