Green Room - Week 18 - Day 5

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Time is running short, and I can already hear the vans arriving to get into this place to scrub it down during the off season.

I hope they brought a lot of cleaning solution. Some of these stains aren’t going to come out easily.

There is still a poll though -
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/697433.html

and then one more that will determine who the winner will be!!

So, let’s start the final countdown celebration right now: What was your favorite parts of the Exhibits (A and B)?

Comments

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

I missed a fair bit of A. But I loved the intersections in B. I think there should have been more of them. I would have liked to have seen intersections every other week :D

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahahaha!

Wait. Are you serious?

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

Sure! You don't think that would have been cool?

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Nope. There was a week or two in there when I was very close to dropping if we kept having intersections. Happily we had a break about that time.

Writing is NOT a team sport.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

You know, if there had been a schedule ahead of time that said "ok, these weeks will be intersections, and you'll have this long to get them in" - yeah, I think that would have been cool. Every other week? Got it. No problem. I know what to expect.

But because it was so random, it kind of felt like The Intersection Monster could leap out of the bushes at any moment, and then there'd be the stress of finding a partner and coordinating and coming up with an idea that worked in tandem instead of just solo, in addition to the normal everyday stress of "here's a prompt (or here are many prompts to choose from, or whathaveyou) and you must write something for it within this small set of time".

[i-love-freddie.livejournal.com]

I absolutely hated the intersections. They caused me to have panic attacks, I hated them that much.

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

I was seriously considering dropping if the rapid-fire intersections kept up too. Not as any sort of flounce, just because they're so stressful and time-consuming they were threatening to obliterate my summer plans, and I'd already gotten into arguments with several friends and family members over it.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I loved Exhibit A. I loved the non-twistiness of it. I loved the non-dramanes of it. I loved the intimacy of the smaller group. Exhibit A was teh awesome.

I can't think of specific things. There were posts I enjoyed reading. There were posts I was glad I wrote.

I certainly enjoyed getting to know some people better.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

Another vote for the vibe of Exhibit A, although the competitive side of me winced every so often because there wasn't any twisty-turns.

I don't know exactly when things went pear-shaped in B, but they did.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I kind of feel like things went pear-shaped when folks started talking about how pear-shaped they were. But maybe I was just oblivious to bad stuff or people being mean to one another or whatever. I don't know.

(And this isn't me saying "don't talk about problems and they won't exist". Honest. Because that's really not how I work. This is me saying "all the talking about problems, especially in vague or cryptic terms, began to feel like a problem in and of itself to me, above and beyond any problems I noticed".)

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

My opinion? Things go pear-shaped and cryptic when people-in-general don't want to come right out and say stuff that may cause a buttload of hurt and drama. It's always been there, but IMO it was particularly prominent in both s7 and s8.

In earlier seasons there were people who wouldn't mince words in public and/or who had no qualms about specifically writing about them in a meta post. Except for PTW and a couple of others here and there, that's no longer the case, which only adds to the whole pear-shaped/cryptic thing.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Those of us who are naturally pear-shaped have no choice about being that way! ;)

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

That makes two of us :)

[x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com]

I also didn't mind the intersections. It's fun to colaberate but not every week. :P The few we had were plenty enough.

I didn't really pay attention to exhibit A so I would have to say exhibit B. I don't really have a favorite part though, haha. I enjoyed just being a part of it.

I just don't get where all the drama came in for this exhibit. I must have been asleep.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

I loved all of the experimentation that went on in the exhibits - people played a lot, with form, with voice, with characters, and with each other, and I think that's fabulous. There's more, but I haven't had any caffeine yet, and I should remedy that...

[anyonesghost.livejournal.com]

The Intersections were stressful, but exciting. The Twists were interesting, but dared me to do better. The feedback has been great.

I wasn't around for Exhibit A, but I appreciated meeting new people in Exhibit B. I appreciated the daring of entries (that people took risks), and the shorter time frame (so it wasn't a 500-day engagement), and how one wouldn't be as "lost in a crowd" as one might be in a 300-person Season. I've enjoyed myself immensely, even when completely frazzled.

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Quick phone comment - stuck at staff development and taking advantage of brief lunch break to sneak in here.

Also, trigger warning, I'm about to earn another bitch award, if there are any left that I haven't already won.

I thought Exhibit A was, by Idol standards, pretty damn boring. Okay, it still beat the shit out of just about everything else out there, and I did have fun, but it just didn't feel like Idol. I've liked Exhibit B so much better I can't even express it in words. The massive amount of intersections have been kind of a headache sometimes, sure, but this felt like mini-Idol as opposed to Diet Idol with reduced calories, sodium, and everything else that makes things tasty and scrumptious.

Also, I'm just gonna put this out here: I've seen people talking about phantom "bad things" in Exhibit B way more than I've actually seen or heard about any actual bad things! Okay, the poll buggery was obviously a train straight out of WTFville (both the termination-causing buggery a few weeks ago and the Facebook dog pile last week) but other than that, I haven't seen anything other than faint echos of the usual suspects - pimping debates, a pseudo-flounce or two, a few heated GR discussions, a couple of posts contemplating the nature of Idol... just nothing out of the ordinary in that regard. So, out of the two seasons, I really don't get why Exhibit A was supposedly the shiny magical wonder kid and exhibit B was the red-headed step child.

I loved the twists this round (even the ones I hated, I loved that they were there, even if I hated them specifically) and I definitely loved the user-submitted topics. Loved the length of Exhibit B too. It was long enough to get people emotionally invested and to get the endurance element to factor in, but not so long it was just dizzying.

A'ight, my time's up. Flame away. :p

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Well, you know. Some of us don't actually LIKE twists! We cope, because it's part of the game, but yes-- they don't always make things exciting for everyone. For some people, they're just stressful.

So those people will tend to like Exhibit A better. I did.

I think I wrote some really awesome stories for both, and both were stressful, but the time-pressure stress is enough for me! I don't need added weirdness to increase the stress!

Also, I'm just gonna put this out here: I've seen people talking about phantom "bad things" in Exhibit B way more than I've actually seen or heard about any actual bad things!
Yeah, I don't know what that's about either. :O

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

A'ight, question for you and anyone else who might be anti-twist. (And this is a legit curious question, apologies if it comes across as anything else.)

Why Idol? I mean, if a twist free zone is what you want, there are umpteen billion straight up writing competitions and writing circles and writer groups out there, but the reality TV show elements are what make Idol so unique. Most of the Idol debates we have around here, I can at least *see* the other side, even if I think it's horribly misguided and totally wrong :p But wanting to eliminate the major thing that sets Idol apart and makes it unique, I truly can't understand. Why grind crystal into glass?

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I loved the topics in both Exhibits. Ex A was sort of sedate, but I enjoyed it. Ex B was much more exciting, and I lasted longer, so that was fun too! I liked the twists in Ex B, especially the ones that I wasn't involved in directly (ie: the head-to-head vote off that went awry).

I can't cite specifics, my brain doesn't work that way, and I've been involved with Idol so long (since season 4 as a contestant, season 3 as a community member/supporter) that it all sort of melts together like Neopolitan ice cream that has sat out too long! :)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I liked the low-twist/no-twist part of Exhibit A better, but I liked the "bucket o' topics" aspect of Exhibit B better (it came up more often). Especially since many of the user-submitted topics were "WTF?", it helped to choose the best of a bad bunch. ;)

I did actually find a means to enjoy a few of my intersections in Ex B, thanks to PTW and lrig_rorrim. For S8, two of them involved terrific partners but were both while I was on vacation (HATE), and the third... the person stopped talking to me over the course of the weekend and then submitted a barely-related story, which nearly got both of us voted out. Very talented writer, but god-- that was awful.

I also enjoyed seeing the new writers in both rounds (new to me, at least), and getting to better know a few from S8.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The "bucket of topics" was a side effect of having a lot of them left and not really wanting to continue using them into Season 9! :)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Well, there is that!

If you're going to eliminate big chunks of contestants each week (shortening the season), those two-topics-per-person can really back up!

Still, I was glad to have the options for many of them. ;)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

I know it's past deadline, but since I'm competing I gave myself an extension.

Here's my home-game entry:

http://alycewilson.livejournal.com/563534.html

[kajel.livejournal.com]

You guys are having way too much fun in here while I have company!!!! ;)~