BA BA BA BA BA BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The competition is closed and well done on a very successful round!

The aptly-named Knights of the Order of Not Appearing in this Round:
Dear Otters
Dear Conquistador
May good fortune follow you and we know your company again in the coming weeks.

In Seventh Place: 6Foxtrot9
In Sixth Place: Microwave
In Fifth Place: Joe
In Fourth Place: BTT
In Third Place: Testamentary
In Second Place: Majube

And your winner,

In First Place: Niez!

Niez, please PM me to receive your prize, which I can now reveal is the reward of a job well done.

Furthermore, for exceeding the hidden bonus cut off of 75%, with eight out of ten of us reviewing, I am pleased to announce Zombie will not be permanently banning everyone in the club! Congratulations! May all your future days be filled with memery and the knowledge that you all, presumably, made Gaius' day a little brighter.
-
We'll call a halt there pending the flash round after this weekend, and the holidays.

Feel free to suggest fics in the thread and we'll see you all in 2020 with more exciting announcements, why not! Happy Winter Holidays my fellow Inquisitors!

 

What? I demand a recount! Clearly your own review far exceeded my own both in terms of length and pretentiousness. That being said I will accept my 'job well done' with the grace of a natural born champion and wish the rest of you losers luck for the next round, which you will all sorely need if you are to have the faintest chance of beating me.

 

Thanks again for the feedback everyone. I've tried to respond to your comments and questions and am thinking about ways to revise the writing and rethink the story. Now I plan to go back to ch. 1 with your feedback in mind and post a revision with the second chapter, whenever I have finished that.

 

Oooof.

What is done in the shadow must come out in the light. I’m sorry to say that Blorcyn was accused by Blorcyn of indulging in word fixing and self-plagiarism. He went up before himself in a kangaroo court and Blorcyn sent him down. Blorcyn will not tolerate anyone making a mockery of our fine institution, especially not some jumped up jack-a-nape using his position to do dodgy dealing. We won’t be seeing Blorcyn again for a long, long time if Blorcyn has anything to say about it. Which he doesn’t? Does.


Sorry, I meant to say: Congratulations.

 

Hello fellow Inquisitors, I’ve been thinking about ways to take this little project of ours and turn it into something that is more sustainable and structured, so that our dear Blorcyn is not running the operation by sheer force of will. I kept telling myself I would organize my ideas into a more coherent plan, but I’ve typed this out in the notes on my phone, so that’s never going to happen. As such, I’m just posting what I’ve got.



These are all just suggestions, which I’m putting forward hoping to spark some discussion. I’m not married to any of them, so feel free to say they’re bad or suggest different ideas that you think are better.



TIS Mk.2 Proposal


Begin Jan. 1st

1-month review cycles

-Week 0: rolling submissions form to collect candidate works

-Week 1: choose a work by vote/committee

-Week 2-3: read work and discuss internally; engage with author if possible

-Week 4: finalize review, potentially posting as a single review or select themed reviews, courtesy the TIS

~



At the start of each cycle, ask TIS membership if they intend to write a review (y/n), potentially via discord bot? I don’t know how bots work tbh. If yes, follow-up at halfway and start of final week. No consequences for “no” response. A certain number of failures to respond (yes or no) results in warning, and then later removal.

~



Posting a collective review allows individuals to contribute as much or as little as they are able to. It also establishes a collective authority and a more-or-less unified editorial direction, with the added benefit of streamlining feedback by reducing repetition and imprecise critiques.



A more collective approach to reviewing also builds esprit du corps and promotes the growth of our reviewers as well as the writers we review.

~



Focus on encouraging writers to keep writing. Give previously-reviewed works priority for re-review after a certain number of new words/chapters.


and/or


Have a month or two or three each year where we blitz a bunch of updated works and re-review the new updates.


and/or


have members of TIS adopt works and follow them, continuing to provide feedback as the work is updated.

~



Open a TIS-specific Discord channel. We seem to be doing most of our communication on the platform anyways, and it generally allows us to engage in quicker and more dynamic discussions, which would be vital if we want to do more collaborative reviews.

~



Establish some kind of submission form that TIS members and perhaps even authors themselves can use to submit works for review. Each cycle, we can pull some of the works from the pool (perhaps based off of a theme?) and select from among them.
~

Posting this from my phone, so fingers crossed it isn’t a formatting disaster.

 

I second this, it's some good shit and by soczab who also wrote the EdmureSI. This one isn't a full si though as they don't know about GoT or Asoiaf so its just a modern oc-insert.
summary -

The fic has some good writing ofc but it's still pretty early on plot wise.

 

Honestly never read the books or the bad fanfiction that I hear the show consists of, so if it's chosen I will sit that one out.

 

The winter holidays are over. Now, remains, winter alone.

Harden your hearts, let them be as ice as we open the squad’s 2020 hunting season.

At present we’ve a lovely nomination from Zombie for an Asoiaf fic. Please throw anything else you’d like in here, too.

We’ll plan for this first month (of February, give or take a week) to be a little different and incorporate some of Testamentary’s excellent ideas.

Particularly, a rolling document. I was thinking we could try two over February, if someone throws up another fic.

How might you split or not split a collaborative effort up? By topic or by chapter? Toss your ideas in here or the discord. No worries.

 

I think it was a combination of things; last fic was too long, not too particularly engaging (the beggining was rough), and a shared doc in my experience is usually a bad idea unless one member becomes a taskmaster/takes responsibility. People end up doing less than they would otherwise do individually and generally speaking the whole thing risks falling apart.

For those reasons I think we should try doing a few easier (read: shorter) ones in the upcoming weeks. Reviewing one or few chapters every two weeks or so shouldn't be too onerous, even taking into account competition deadlines, and there are plenty of new, shorter fics in the WbA that get no replies. I don't know, but presumably that is not too encouraging/doesnt incentivise further postings, which is just the issue this whole thing was created for.

As such, I would like to suggest, in no particular order:

Stalks in the Stale
​

Summary: Daphne cares about one thing in the world: curing her sister’s illness. But when she’s caught stealing medicine, only Tom Riddle, headmaster of Hogwarts, will help her. During the school year, a string of murders implicate Daphne in an old conflict between the two men pushing Britain to the brink of civil war. Trapped between titans, a terrible choice looms on the horizon—Dumbledore or Grindelwald? AU.

Word count: Cheeky 9k.
Chapter count: 1
First post: Jan 16, 2020.
Most recent post: Jan 16, 2020.
Review window: ? I dont know, I'm not Blorcyn. A week I'd say, so maybe April 28th. Maybe even less. Its on.

Why I nominate it: This is setting up to be a wild AU, which I always appreciate, but with exactly zero replies I dont imagine it will actually happen. Besides, its Harry/Daphne, so I mean, come on.

Surroundings​

Summary: After entering his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry catches a glimpse of a girl that will steal his attention. Wanting to have a secret of his own, he decides to keep this information to himself.

Word count: Not sure, I would say about 40k-60k, extrapolating from the lenght of the first three chapters.
Chapter count: 14 (they are pretty short though, averaging 3-4k)
First post: Jan 5, 2015.
Most recent post: Apr 2, 2020.
Review window: Two weeks? It may sound a lot of words for two weeks but bear with me.

Why I nominate it: Before you bite my head off, I'm aware this one is a bit longer than what I recommended we should do, but there is a method to my madness; the author has recently picked up the story after a long hiatus and published three new chapters to... absolute crickets. I think in reviewing this one we should focus on those last three, seeing as the author has gotten good feedback already for the first ones (back in the dark ages of the site when I wasn't yet a member). Besides, its Harry/Daphne, so I mean, come on.

Giant's Blood
​

Summary: The anger of a decent man is to be feared. It is 1981 and the war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named drags on. Good folk go missing in the night, or are murdered in their homes. Nowadays, Rubeus Hagrid is a simple man. He tends his garden, watches the grounds of Hogwarts, and if he can have a drink at the end of the day, considers himself content. He is a decent man, but he is also half giant. Voldemort's Death Eaters will wish they had merely angered a decent man.

Word count: 8k
Chapter count: 2
First post: Feb 8, 2020.
Most recent post: Feb 20, 2020
Review window: A week again I think.

Why I nominate it: One of our own and we all know how thirsty wize is. If we don't review then he'll never continue and that will be a shame. The easiest one to do, probably, both because its short and because its well-written so not much to comment on. The 'easy' choice for those who dont know that when it comes to choosing between right and easy you are supposed to choose the former. Besides, its Harry/Dap... huh.

PS: I realise I completely ignored your suggestion blorcyn but given that Kicking Gotham is both large and in charge I don't imagine many people will turn out to review it. I read it, its great, so other than 'good job' and 'Paulo is a Brazilian name not Spanish you fuck' I dont imagine I could contribute much. Besides, Steel has all the attention nowadays, not that he doesnt deserve it mind, but I think we should try to spread the love a bit more.

 

I vote for this one.

 

I think this one shows more promise than the others, and it has zero replies, so might as well do something about it.

 

I vote for Stalks in the Stale as well to be honest. I think it's better to take a short one, and encourage new talent. I think a sharp time line, i.e. starting this weekend and finishing not this monday, but the monday after, would be good.

 

With this I cast my lot

thejabber27

So I'm going to cast my vote for Giants Blood, not enough good Hagrid fics.

 

HU-AAAAAAAH!

Another rousing success.

For this weekend, may I suggest our own new member Mr. @Frickles who has posted some first few small chapters in the WbA.

A Simple Act of Vengeance​

Summary: A Death Eater finds Harry two years before he leaves for Hogwarts, and that assassination attempt sets Harry on a course that will shake the Wizarding World to its foundations. Pulled in two directions by opposing sides, Harry must decide which path to walk. Super!Harry (eventually), pairing still undecided.

Word count: 83k on ffn, but the first chapters in WbA of ~10k
Chapter count: 6 on WbA.
Review window: WbA - the weekend, once more!

This is frickles first story, and I think a lot of what may apply to the first chapters applies to all the chapters. By pointing out areas of constructive feedback and being specific in how it might be improved, we can possibly show what we mean 'in action' making it simple for Frickles to apply going forward. I think with just a small of feedback, Frickles can really knock it up a notch and will take to it quickly. For a first story, it's a lot better than anything I've written.
-
Of course, @Niez 's other suggestions still stand, if you'd rather. Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to like, R&R, Kudos, Subscribe, heart, fav and follow!

 

I'm down for Frickin' Frickles fine fanzine. He did mention he prefers the format he has on FFN something about section breaks I think, so I suggest we base reviews around that.