Results - Week 14, Finale

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Ladies and Gentlemen... or whatever it is that one would call those such as yourselves...

We come together today not to celebrate the successful completion of LJ Idol: Exhibit A, an adventure that we took. We do not come to pat each other on the back and talk of good times.

No, we come to bask in the glory of a victor and for all before them to crumble to the feet of the Winner and Champion of our first ever mini-season!

Maybe there can be some celebrating of everyone's accomplishments too. If you insist. Mostly though, it's about closing up the Green Room and sending in the cleaning crews. You weren't in there all that long, but man did you manage to stink up the place!!


Anyway - getting to the matter at hand...

In FOURTH PLACE, we have the one and only talonkarrde88
In THIRD PLACE, we have the complete and utter duplicate of milk_and_glass
In a stunning SECOND PLACE finish, after coming back from SECOND CHANCE IDOL. (there is something about "second" going on...) impoetry!

And of course, our winner. Who came in as one of the last people to sign up, and almost didn't - someone that I have long listed as someone who I would have loved to see in an "All Star" season, coming back and proving to everyone, but especially to herself, that she has something truly special, that is is something very special -

Please join me in congratulating our FIRST EVER MINI-SEASON WINNER, and Champion of Exhibit A:

zephyrly

Comments

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

HELL. YES.

Well fucking played, madame! Well fucking played.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

... Is this also an icon you made yourself because if so I totally fucking stole that one, too, years and years ago. xD

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Yay! Congrats to everyone, and especially to zephyrly for pulling out the win! You guys all rocked the mini-season!

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Yay! Congrats to all the finalists for a game well played.

Congrats to winner zephyrly!

::pom poms::

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats to everyone and especially zephyrly!!!

:pops the champagne:

[beldar.livejournal.com]

CONGRATULATIONS ZEPHYRLY!

Have some cake

[welfy.livejournal.com]

Western Pennsylvania Ladies REPRESENT!

*fist bump with zeph*

[zephyrly.livejournal.com]

Apparently, our small town's chief exports are Augustine's pizzas and good writers.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

Hooray! And as a pure spectator, I want to thank all of you participants for another great season of reading!

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Spectators rule! I didn't know we had so many of them. :)

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[zephyrly.livejournal.com]

I've been doing this hysterical laughing/crying thing for like twenty solid minutes, and I just realized that I took my glasses off somewhere along the line. Probably because they were so full of tears that I couldn't see out of them anymore. So, bear with me.



The place where I come from is a small town. They think so small; they use small words.

I've been listening to this song since 9:00, too (ever since the Golden Girls ended!). I used to listen to it a lot whenever I was still living in my tiny hometown. It's kind of a silly song, really, but I wanted to get out of my small town so badly and escape to the city.

I did that, and a lot of bad things happened. I survived all of it somehow, but I wound up severely traumatized. I couldn't speak anymore. The stories I once told fell apart, and I didn't think that I was capable of weaving it all back together.

Two years. Two years, I thought that my life was over because I lacked a voice. I was some kind of monster. I had no future. I hated myself. I hated everything because my voice had been stolen. I was powerless.

I'll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out.

I can't tell you what happened, but it started back in January (the day before my birthday). There was a spark, and that was apparently all I needed. My throat warmed back up. It cracked and thawed. I croaked and groaned, and before long I was speaking.

My parties have all the big names, and I greet them with the widest smile.

This party. It had all the very best names and the very best people. I am deeply blessed and humbled and amazed and grateful of all of you. It's so hard for me to fathom so many good examples of humanity gathered together in one place. It's downright incredible and oh God I'm crying again.

Tell them how my life is one big adventure, and always they're amazed.

That's the thing. I got my voice back, but people actually wanted to listen! And I just kept going because, why not? I didn't have to stop. I could just keep going, telling stories forever. Because that's what I love to do, more than anything.

I'm on my way, I'm making it. I've got to make it show, yeah. So much larger than life. I'm gonna watch it grow, yeah.

And now I feel unstoppable. Like I reclaimed myself from the abyss. I didn't do it on my own, either. My life is mine again, and I want to write and write and write! I would have never thought that this was possible at the beginning of the year. Oh God THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!

And my heaven will be a big heaven, and I will walk through the front door.

This is my heaven. It is a big heaven. I will never, ever doubt my writing again because it can do great things. That's the best lesson I could have ever learned.

Everything is so, so incredibly surreal right now (and it probably didn't help that I drank a bunch of coffee). Thank you, Gary, for this awesome opportunity. Thank you, everyone, for being so patient and nice and awesome and supportive and the best people I've ever known. And thank you, George Noory, for sucking so much so I had something to write about. (Okay, I kind of promised someone that I would add that last line.)

I really don't even know what I'm saying anymore, so just thank you everyone and oh my God I'm not going to sleep tonight.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[kandigurl.livejournal.com]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! Everyone who participated is a winner for being willing to get their writing out there where a bunch of people can read it! Yay!

[lyricmaniac.livejournal.com]

Congrats zephyrly!

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Congrats, lady. :) You dun did good. :D

[jenny_evergreen]

Congratulations all around!

[tatdatcm.livejournal.com]

Congrats to everyone!

[ashgaelsonaria.livejournal.com]

Yay for everyone.
I would toss some streamers all lit up nice but I just cant seem to find those black cats.

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to zepherly for an incredible showing! Marvelously done!

[alien-writings.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, everyone!

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Hey Gary - when do we find out who got which Community Chest item?

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for one more person to turn in their list of requests - and then there is still some sorting to do. (trying to get something for everyone from their Top 5 list. Fortunately, most people picked at least one "unique" item that makes it easier to decide!

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

Congrats to the top 4 and, obviously, zephyrely!

a few months of great writing pays off! :D

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Congratulations zephyrly. I have to admit though, my pick was milknglass.

[impoetry.livejournal.com]

This has been one incredibly wild ride, it's hard to believe it's actually over! Where's the next prompt? lol

2nd place is a fabulous place to be! You still have enough room to be a “show stealer” if you're not in the main event. :)

zephyrly is a wonderful person, a supremely talented writer, and one of the most popular contestants in LJ Idol. That's not an accident. So kudos for the masterful victory.

When the doctors prescribed me a litany of mind-numbing medications to “aid” me in my life, it took away a great many things. For over a year, I was unable to tap into my creative juices and thought I'd never write again. Fortunately, changes in health care, and subsequently, this mini-season of Idol, turned all that around.

I've never been the most popular here, and I likely never will be. Feeling like an outsider both pushed me, and cut at me. And though I'm glad I never gave in to the temptation of quitting because “I wasn't wanted,” I do wish my attempts at being social were more successful.

Either way though, I'm brimming with pride because I truly came back from the edge (in life and in game) and did better than my best. Thank you to those who have submitted the wonderful comments I've received, and congratulations to everyone who had the courage to compete at all. Thank you to Gary for creating this, and running this ship so efficiently.

Take care.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I think you really came out of your shell this season (though I have only the prior season for comparison), so it looks to me as if your attempts at being social, while perhaps not what you were aiming for, were very successful indeed!

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

Applause and congrats to the winner of the first ever mini-Idol season!
It was a great contest and fabulous writing for everyone involved. Waiting to see what's next for us!

For those asking...

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm, in the process of finalizing the Community Chest selections.

I tried my best to get everyone something from their Top 5. But that didn't always work out. (Where it didn't, I contacted people to see what else they wanted, or, in a couple cases, if there were multiple items left that they wanted, for them to prioritize which one they wanted the most!)

I should be able to confirm who gets what in the next couple of days! Look for an email!

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The emails for Community Chest have all gone out!

Congratulations!