LJ Idol Presents:

I designed this mini season around the idea of a Literary Prize Fight, knowing that the theme could make this the most dramatic and competitive event yet.

It was a risk, bridging that line between blowing things apart with too much drama and just enough to get and keep people's attention.

Instead, almost everything I made available to help spur that potential drama was ignored and we end up with the two finalists agreeing to a tie and walking out pretty much hand in hand.

Damn hippies ruin everything. ;)

I think kathrynrose would be laughing her head off right now.

It's the second time in Idol history where we have ended in a tie, as well as being the second mini season to do that. The first was where it fit the concept. This time it ran contrary, but the voters just couldn't make up their minds! :D (For those interested, the next round in the process is a Community Only vote. As I've said, we went to that in Season 2.) I don't blame them. I would have had a difficult time picking between them as well. Two very different writers who both deserved the win.

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A special thank you to jenwithapen  who helped me out getting this set up over here in Dreamwidth as well as stepping in to do some punch hitting while I was away.
And of course our two anonymous donors (and all those less anonymous donors over the course of the mini season!) 

And thank you to all of YOU - those who competed as well as those supporting (and voting) from the sidelines. You are what helps make this experience special.

The off season might be restful for you, but it's always pretty busy for me. I mention this because out of sight and out of mind while everyone else is going about their lives, I'm cooking up the next season. :) So if you want to support that work - and are able to do so of course, please consider becoming a Patron Become a Patron!

If you are unable to, or just don't want to - but want to help in other ways, I have a big project coming up this summer in hopes of getting some fresh blood. If you want to take part in that, send me an email at clauderainsrm@gmail.com

I hope to see you all at the Homecoming





Until then, Dreslinski Out.

A few words from Gary:

Once more into the breach my friends!


It’s Part 2 of the FINALE! The Sudden Death Write Off that will determine who will be the WiNNER of the Literary Prize Fight and who will suffer the final knockout.


Read. Comment. Vote for your favorite(s)!


The poll closes tomorrow night, Saturday May 4th at 10pm EDT


Good luck to both of you!

Good Morning, or whatever time it is when you read this.

Last night, we had the results of our FINALE!! Only to find out, due to yet another tie in this mini season of ties, it was just the first stage in the finale. https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1066088.html

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I also confirmed via email with those handling Kate's memorial that not only is it OK to have the Kathrynrose Spirit of Idol award - but that next season there WILL be a prize for the recipient, that they will be donating.

It makes me wish we had been in a place to set something up for Siggy after Luna died. Which is kind of the opposite of what I'm talking about... but that's how my brain is working right now.

Anyway, this has been a rough mini season emotionally. I'm going to celebrate the winner and get started on the next full season - but in between I'm definitely going to try my best to get some rest in there as well! :)

When I posted about the Not-a-spirit award, I remembered that I had a name for it. But I couldn't think of it at the time. You know how those things just slip out of focus when you need them. And I hadn't written it down, so that was no use.

Survivor actually had been the one to name it - The Fan Favorite Award. The first one ever given was to Rupert in All Stars. He ended up winning the exact same amount as Amber (who won the season), just for being popular. :)

This of course is a little different in that it's the other contestants voting - but it's the same principle, so I've changed the subject line of that post. :)

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I considered naming it after kathrynrose - but she hated money being involved with Idol at all. So I don't think she would like that. I'll check with her estate though, they might have a different feeling...

Tinhuviel? She hated people. :D Maybe rebrand the title of winner after the original? I don't know...

Alex? Aled was an amazing writer, but he really didn't hang out with a lot of the other contestants.

Luna? Already has a Idol award named after her.

Erica_crawford? Not really her style either. Same with walkertxkitty - although there really should be something named after her...

lee_hawk? Oh man, same. I need to come up with something for that.

and of course kittymichaels won everything, So his only reward was getting to be kittymichaels. :)

For right now though it's just the Fan Favorite Award - and the deadline to get me your votes is tomorrow: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1065725.html

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There's one more vote happening right now though - and it's to decide who wins this mini season!!! So it's kind of important. I guess. If you're into that sort of thing. :)

https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1064830.html

Do I want to stir people up this morning?

Hmmm... sure...

Uber was guilty of trusting that people weren't asshats. Unfortunately, people are.

They probably should have considered that someone was going to exploit their auto response. But it takes a real shithead to do that - and it takes someone who is going out of their way to find a problem with the company to think that they did it deliberately. I don't mean the ones who saw it initially and reacted with their gut impulse. I'm thinking more of the ones who came in hours later, after the apology was already up and Uber was giving people discounted rides, who just wanted to go off on the racist company.

I was going to link an article, but honestly, most of the ones I could find seem to just be exploiting the situation for hits and/or giving attention to troll's account.

So, since most of you probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about - because that's 99% of these posts, I'll pull back a bit and explain...

Uber, like a lot of businesses, has an auto response. I'm going to use Murielle as an example name.

If she had something to say to Uber, like "I had problems using your app", they would write back "Sorry to hear that Murielle" with the support contact information.

It makes sense from a business standpoint of why you would want to address customers by name. It also makes sense that someone would try to troll that feature.

In this case, again, let's say it's Murielle - because that makes it far more shocking, she changes her name to (the N-word). Because that's what the troll did.

Now you know what auto response would end up tweeting.

After getting the response, Murielle then changed her name back, so anyone looking it at thinks the Uber auto response team is just really really racist monsters.

I'm NOT saying that the company shouldn't have seen this coming and put filters in place. They probably should have. But I can also see why it would never really occur to someone to do.

Uber has a lot of problems. Which is why there are protests scheduled. But I think it's a mistake to go after the company being exploited harder than people seem to be going after the troll who used the word as a bait and switch to get the company to say it.

Of course, I'm sure there are people who will say I'm wrong - OK, I'm fine with learning more on what I'm missing in the subtext, so feel free to let me know!

I'm coming from a position as someone who has had a few people using "offensive" user names. (Nowhere near that word just things that were designed to get a reaction) I had to post them in the poll, because that was their name. I do wonder though where that line would be - I'm not an auto response after all. Hopefully no one ever decides to push that. But I'm sure, being the internet, at some point, some troll will.

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You don't have to be a troll like Murielle to be interested in finale poll! https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1064830.html

It closes tomorrow night. So make sure to get your votes in!

A few words from Gary:

This is definitely going to be an interesting finale.

3 talented writers who all submitted perfect representations of just how good they are.

Something that I personally found interesting was that this is the first time in Idol Mini Season history that the writers in the finale didn’t use “Open Topic” as an excuse to write the traditional Idol finale of “why I should win/why my opponent should win”.

I’m going to interpret that as people finally listening to me! :)

This is also the first finale where I’ve started it on muscle relaxers!

I did something to my lumbar region - sudden sharp pains aren’t fun. It’s why I was out of commission this weekend. I spent most of the morning today at the doctor’s office and then going for a X-Ray. The fun never stops. But thanks to the miracle of muscle relaxers I’m mostly here for the finale! :)

And what a finale it is!

I sincerely love the work all three of these folks have produced for Literary Prize Fight!

I’m really happy to have them representing the competition at this level.

They took different paths to get here. But all are worthy of the crown. Note: there is no actual crown.

Only one is going to take it though.

That is up to YOU, the voter, to decide!

The poll will be open until Thursday May 2nd at 9pm EDT.

So read, comment and vote for your favorites!

This one is for all the marbles. Note; there are no marbles being given out. This time around I wasn’t even able to get an icon made. The prize went to the Top 4. So everyone in it right now already has that.

This is all about the glory, and being the last writer standing!

Good luck to everyone!