Contest Results!!

Hello all! It's 10:30PM here, but I don't want to make any of you wait any longer! I apologize for this coming later than expected-- We ended up running into a lot of personal life stuff this month. But the contest judging is finally complete!!

First of all, I want to extend all my thanks to everyone who joined the competition. We were so impressed with the number of entries we got! Everything submitted was great and judging was very difficult, so we ended up tapping two of our developer friends to help us with it! 

With that, I'd also like to extend special thanks to our two guest judges: pentagonbuddy and apogeedwell/Perihelion!! They were both awesome and finished their judging long before either of us did!! 

Now onto the results!

I'm going to start with the fanfiction category. In no particular order, I will list the links and the judges' anonymous comments for the entries, and at the end I will list the winning 3 entries! (Warning: Comments may contain fanfic spoilers!)

FANFICTION ENTRIES

"Not From This World"
by Maumann

"A cute vignette with a surprise ending. This is a very unique interpretation of Sawyer and Nikolai being of different worlds. I'm curious where this would go if you wrote more of it."
"Curious where THIS one will go. It started out so cute, but then...! I ended up being surprised."
"What an intriguing concept!! Genuinely surprising development and I want to know more about the Sawyer in the story, and what happens to Nikolai...!"
"Wow, this was a wild ride! And what a cliffhanger! This really opens up a lot of questions for me about what would happen after this. If you write more, I'm interested in reading it!!"

"Precious Family"
by MisteryLaurie

"Delivering the sadness!! It ends bleak but I kind of want to see it continue, to explore an aftermath where he has to interact with the other characters and deal with the trauma and intrigue."
"Ahhh, this story is so sad!! And it all happens so fast, poor Nikolai! I really like that we got an appearance from Rishika too!"
"Started off cute, but this one also took quite the unexpected turn! Even got me to think "poor Nikolai"."
"Whoa, very sad. Seems like some kind of poetic justice for Nikolai to finally find love and then have it end tragically. Poor guy!"

"Indelible"
by MonstrousBoyfriends

"This was really cute! Phoebe seems like a fun, strong take on the MC and I liked watching her stick up for and take care of Cailean. Great job!"
"School dance is a classic prompt! And Cailean being shy while paired with Phoebe as outspoken is a fun dynamic, this was another sweet one."
"Such a sweet set of moments! I liked the verbal sparring."
"You did a great job capturing the personalities of Cailean and Nikolai! I can absolutely imagine this whole interaction taking place in the game. Nice work!"

"Mr. Popular Meets Miss I Don't Care"
by crazycheetah
(Sadly  this one was accidentally deleted! As the original no longer exists, the author re-wrote it after the contest was over, which is the version we have linked here. That's some amazing dedication!)

"Cool exploratory piece! The idea of Sawyer having a sibling is very interesting and opens all kinds of cool questions about what their role in this whole supernatural world would be."
"This is great, I'm so curious to know what happens next! It seems like the setup for a lot of interesting things to happen!"
"Protective sibling relationships are VERY relatable. I'm curious if there will be more, since the ending made this sound like the start of something longer?"
"He so deserved that."

And now, the fanfiction category winners!



WINNERS

THIRD PLACE

"Colorful Things"
by 8melody88

"This imagery is so pretty and sweet! I love the last sentence. I wish there was more, yet it's perfect as-is... at exactly 100 words! Most times people are more forgiving with their definition of "drabble"!"
"Short but sweet! You capture what sounds like such a comforting moment."
"I love how pretty this is! It has such lovely feeling and atmosphere, even while being so short! And it's perfectly 100 words!"
"Brief but enjoyable. Nice mood, and I really liked the last line!"




SECOND PLACE

"Sleepy"
by moonlit--river

"I like how Deka's personality is shown here, and the last line in particular got me to smile. Plus, cute prompt!"
"I love how wholesome and sweet this story is! It gives me such a soft feeling to read it. <3"
"This was adorable! I think you did a great job of capturing Deka's character, and the thing with them forgetting humans need to sleep was cute. Very sweet little piece."
"I'm so glad you broke out of your writing shell, so we could have stories like this. It's so good and cute!!"




FIRST PLACE

"Shards"
by MonstrousBoyfriends

"I loved this nikolai.............A melancholic entry, but I liked it!"
"Top notch Nikolai in action... What will he do next??"
"I love this one, wow. I feel like you did a good job on Nikolai's character here, and the ending really got me!! Awesome work!!"
"Nice job on this one! The emotional descriptions were vivid, and it has a good plot arc throughout despite being brief. Extremely on brand for Nikolai, too. Nice twist at the end, and it was very in character!"

Thank you so much to everyone who entered!! You all did an amazing job!! Stay tuned for an announcement at the end!!

FANART ENTRIES 

Now onto the fanart entries! I was planning on just posting links, but they're all so great, I'm gonna make you scroll through them all instead. <3 There were a LOT of fanart entries, and it really kills me that some of my favorites didn't win. Please check them all out, they're excellent!! (You can click on any of the images to open the original post!)

Most of them did not have titles, so I just made some up or took them from the descriptions. I hope you like them. c:

"Definitely one of my favorites! The symbolism of this one is AWESOME! I really hope you end up finishing this one because I'd love to see what it looks like in color! I'm forever amused by Nikolai's skeevy expression and Cailean's hand on his shoulder trying to pull him back!"

If you did not win a prize, but submitted an entry... please contact us anyway!!
As a thank-you to everyone who entered, we'd like to give every one of you a code for a free copy of the Glasses DLC for Monstrata!
And, if you already have the Glasses DLC... Well, now you'll have a second one you can give to a friend! (And thank you very much for supporting us!!)

Thank you all so much, whether you entered, judged, or simply enjoyed the submissions. You are all the greatest and we are so honored to have you as our fans and friends. Thank you. <3

-Ren and Vale