I am extremely sorry for the probable death of this community. Life interfered in a serious way, and I had no idea that I would lose interest and patience for this community in such an extreme way. I honestly have not had the time or the energy for the running of this community in the past month and a half, and I'm sorry for postponing this contest because of my problems.

We have three options for the fate of this community, so I'm putting it to a poll. I have the time now to continue, and I have five more challenges planned for the remainder of this round, so that this icontest can resume as planned and finish within the first week or so of February. Another option is to do a big blow-out final challenge to determine the winner - the values of gil earned would equate with five weeks of work, but you are only responsible for one more round of play. The last option is to end the contest now, meaning that current gil totals (after I tabulate them) would be the final results.



I will close the poll on January 4th, at which point I will either post a new challenge with explanations as to the completion of the icontest, or the final results. Thanks for your time.

Agh. So I have a black out for real. I'm on a computer at my library because with no power, and my laptop dead, there is no way I can possibly get online. Sorry guys. :/ Hopefully I'll be able to get back online at home, but I really don't have enough time to get voting tabulated. I'm really sorry! D: But voting was not as good as I'd like anyway (Myrna is going to have a field day over the fact that people didn't do general comments this week) so if you all could continue voting, that would be awesome!

I'm hoping that I'll be back tomorrow, but we caught the leftovers of Ike up here in Ohio and so many people are without power and aren't looking to get it back until this weekend. :/ So it's on a day-to-day kind of basis.

Again, I'm super-sorry! I'm really not the type of mod to have things in late D:

Uh. I lied. Update will be coming hopefully tomorrow. My laptop is currenlty AWOL due to unforeseen circumstances, so I can't get everything up that I wanted to.

Regardless, voting will still be up around 10:00, SO IF YOU ARE GOING TO SUBMIT AN ICON, GET IT IN NOW. NO LITTLE-BIT-LATE THIS TIME XD ♥

Just reminding you all to get your icons in for Saturday! All the scandalous icons are looking amazing - I crack up looking at the submission post. Such a fantastic job! Keep on submitting!

I will be doing a full update tomorrow & Saturday, so I will let you know when all information is current and what exactly we will be doing about Myrna! Keep an eye out, and thank you for your patience in dealing with my slowness. It's been hectic around here with school and I've been very tired and slightly lazy. But I'll be getting back to work here and letting you know about all the new stuff that will be happening around this comm!

♥

SUBMISSION IS CLOSED.

Last week was, again, really great! Thanks for making this a really good icontest. I'm totally happy with the way this place is running. Now we just have to get Myrna off our backs!

Since you found your friends last week, this week is all about hanging back and talking about the really interesting things - who's dating whom, what drugs this kid is doing, who is breaking up or shacking up and who got totally off-their-ass-drunk last party. Your icon must have the theme of scandal or gossip. It can be any type of scandal or juicy gossip, or just characters who look like they're secretly conspiring.

But there's a catch! Because this is the last week before Ultimate Weapon buying, this is going to be a tough week. You will not be able to choose which game series you icon from. I scattered you across the Final Fantasy games based on how the votes went last week. The table contains your assignments.

Final Fantasy VII	Final Fantasy VIII	Final Fantasy IX
Cissnei Terra Freya Rosa Vayne Olette Roxas	Seifer Penelo Agrias Celes Kairi Namine Rydia	Reno Fran Paine Shelke Vivi Ashe
Final Fantasy X	Final Fantasy XII	Final Fantasy XIII
Tidus Squall Axel Rikku Al-Cid Lulu Vexen	Zack Yuna Quina Auron Irvine Rinoa Yuffie	Rasler Aerith Quistis Rufus Tifa Cecil Edea

( Guidelines for SubmissionCollapse )

Icons must be submitted by Saturday, September 13th at 9:00 PM EST.

♥ I'm deciding that I really need a co-mod to do the little book-keeping things around here - changing character profiles, making voting tables, tabulating things. I'm extremely busy and it's so stressful running this place by myself, especially since those small things take forever to do and I can never get around to them until late at night. To apply, give some examples of places you've modded before, and go ahead and tell me why you and I would get along well. Also explain your methods of on-time-ness (because everything needs to be on time here). It'd also be very nice if you had either MSN or AIM so that we could keep in contact when doing things, but it's not necessary if you have a better idea. I'd prefer if you were not a participant here, so if there are people watching this comm (and I know there are), you may apply too. But if a participant is interested and qualified and I want to work with them, we can get something worked out.

Thanks guys ♥

Omg, I don't know what just happened, but that Judge Myrna really does mean business DX And I don't really know how she got posting access...

Anyway, the threat is very real - she's threatening to shut us down if we don't start our payments immediately. Any Mod Specials from this voting post on are going towards our payment of the Archadian Empire. I don't know what else to do, guys. It's out of my hands.

Any Mod Specials I haven't given you gil for yet (meaning I haven't commented on the page about them) will still go to your accounts. I've managed to get that from Judge Myrna, but until she lifts the blackout, I have no power to give you any more gil from Mod Specials. However, the only way you can give her the gil to get rid of the Blackout is to participate in Mod Specials. Luckily, all the gil you win from the challenges in ff_party will go towards you and you alone.

If you have any questions, ask them. I'm still not sure what's going on, but I will let you know as soon as they remove the threatening sword from next to my neck.

I didn't really think this was necessary, but several unusually harsh comments came to my attention from the past vote. I'm not going to point out any names. However, I am going to put out this general announcement that comments that are not constructive or even polite will not be accepted in this community, and I reserve the right to delete any comments containing critiques that are unhelpful or downright mean. I know everyone has different standards for their comments, but I'm including a guideline for what I see as a desirable comment.

Negative comments should be based on TECHNIQUE, SKILL, STYLE, and the like, and not how much you like or dislike the icon. DON'T use a personal standpoint for your negative comments. DON'T use the word 'I' at all in your negative critiques (however, if you include comments about how to potentially improve the icon [...], then in that section you may use the word 'I'). DO write at least two lines for each icon's critique. Be objective (non-preferential), and DO try to be constructive... that is, DON'T be bitchy and mean just because you think the icon sucks. You must have solid reasons for voting icons as being of lesser quality, and you must be able to back up these reasons.

Some points to think about when you make your negative and positive critiques/comments are;

1. Technique and technical skill - does the icon show that the icon maker has good technical skill? Examine the cropping, the coloring, the sharpness, and the layout of the icon, as well as use of textures, brushes, and other embellishments. It is also helpful to examine color saturation and contrast.


2. Typography - does the placement and treatment of the text accent the icon well? Is the typography well-executed? The text content shouldn't matter, except in some specific cases.


3. Style - is the style original, or have you seen it before? Is the style well-executed?

Original text from this Voting Tutorial by xenylamine.

Okay, bad guy glasses off, good guy glasses back on. I will be around less often in the coming weeks because on Wednesday, I will be starting my senior year. Not only will I not be around in the middle of the day, but I will not be around in the late hours of the night. That leaves me with smaller windows for contact. I will be relying on the Teams to self-police and I won't be commenting around as much. I know some of you don't care, but for the rest of you, the schedule will probably be a lot more regimented, and I may be changing some things to make it easier on my schedule. Gameplay will not change - I like the features of this icontest - but I may change some other things that will make it easier to run this community.

From now on, participants who do not submit an icon for the challenge (unless you have a previously explained absence) will lose 100 gil. Gil is flying around this community, and it's not right that some people who have not submitted every week have more gil than others who have. I want 100% participation!

We've got a few icons so far (nice work! :D), and the rest of you need to get to work! Find your friends!

FROZEN

Because gil is going to be tough to come by with just the icon challenges, I'm putting up some ongoing Mod Specials that will be valid throughout the competition and should have some pretty nice payoffs.

PLACING AT AFFILIATE ICONTESTS.

If you place at any of our affiliate icontests at any point, you are eligible for 100 gil. That's any placing - 1st-3rd, Mod's Choice, Special Categories, and any placing at ff_oscars. All you have to do is comment here with the link to the post where it announces winners.

Currently, the only LIMS with aliases where this offer is applicable are dynast_lims and trinity_lims. If the LIMS doesn't use aliases, the offer is applicable.
Regarding dynast_lims placing, it includes People's Choice and Mod's Choice.
At trinity_lims, it means if you advance to the next round.

This offer begins with themes where results are posted after Monday, August 18th.

ff_oscars NOMINATIONS.

We're proud to be affiliates with the awesome community, ff_oscars, which is a community where people nominate icons and iconists for their work in an attempt to find the best icons in the Final Fantasy fandom on the internet.

The reward for nominating at ff_oscars is 400 gil. It's a lot, but to nominate is a lot of work - a lot of thought goes into finding the icons and posting them. Mods navi_glow, gunshou, and margyydoodle have editing power, so if they feel the nomination is not worth the gil, I will hear about it. But I trust you guys to really put some thought into these :]

ff_oscars only has one round per month, so you are only eligible for 400 gil every month. If you've already nominated before I put up this offer, you are still eligible for this gil! Just send me the link to your nomination post! (Nominations before Round 4 are not eligible for gil.)

GENERAL COMMENTS.

Any general comments during voting here at ff_party are good for 50 gil. The points are good for up to FIVE (5) general comments, so the maximum you can earn each week from general comments is 250 gil. These comments must be quality - I will not award gil to comments that don't prove some genuine thought. But as long as you really think about it, the gil is pretty easy to earn.

To see who our affiliates are, check out this post. If you have an icontest with related content that you participate in, and it's not in our affiliates, drop the name at this post and I'll check it out!

These are all the ongoing Specials right now, but I'm sure I'll keep adding some as the round continues.

Regarding the currently open submission post, YOU GUYS ARE PATHETIC. We only have 19 icons out of 41 participants, meaning we're running at 46.3%. We need submission ASAP because I am not extending the deadline and your icons are due in 24 hours. So get to it!

SUBMIT

We have a new affiliate, bof_icontest, which is a biweekly icontest for the Breath of Fire games. It's run by two of your competitors who are wonderful mods, so definitely check it out!

SIGN-UPS ARE CLOSED.

Thank you to our 40 participants, and please be sure to join your teams. We're still missing people in both communities, so join soon before you miss out on important things.

I'm thinking that we will start the first challenge not this Sunday, but next. I know one person has a conflict, and I can work it out with them separately (we can work it out, don't worry). In the meantime, I know Red has a fun idea for an icon exchange, and Blue is working on making the layout and profile completely unique. Get involved! Being involved will make everything that much more fun. Don't forget about the Postcards! They'll foster a healthy rivalry =D

Polls for the positions will go up tomorrow. I've got real, money-paying work to do today, then a baseball game (whoo, yay for friends with season tickets) so I won't have time to put things up. If you are a candidate for Team Leader, you can find three samples of your icons for me and put them in a reply to any of my posts at your community. If you don't, I'll find them for you :].

I'm also considering another position - Team Mascot. Basically, this would be the person with the most enthusiasm and drive for their team to coordinate team activities and also have the opportunity to become a maintainer if they chose. Tell me what you think!

Comments to this post are not screened. If you comment, do not reveal your character identity, thanks.

ALSO! We have an affiliate who is closing sign-ups for another lims battle this Friday.


trinity_lims is under new management and is going to be a BATTLE this round. It is Kingdom Hearts-themed, and I know it will be fun - I'm signed up! The mod needs at least 20 participants to start, so sign up soon!