ST23 ASTOOT Wrapup

Competitions Spring Thing
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With only two days to go before Spring Thing’23 wraps, let me warm up the crowd for the ribbon ceremony with some preliminary pomp… and if it goes well, we’ll throw in some circumstance too. Since the Thing allows me to submit individual ribbon nominations (which OMG have I done), this wrapup will focus on collective recognition and the first ever…

ASTOOTSTATS

(ASTATS really didn’t sound right.) If you can categorize it you can math it. If you can math it, you can graph it. If P then Q.

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Really high levels of gloss, higher than I expected, given the reputation of ST being “looser” than IFComp. Congrats to the authors, your hard work showed!

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Much more even distribution than I expected, going in. I assumed Baby Spice would be tops, with maybe Scary a close second and everyone else gapped below. Ginger Spice FTW, and pretty even otherwise!

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Graph needs no explanation.

From there we segue smoothly to our collective awards, the really-boxed-myself-in-naming-wise:

ASTOOTie Awards

The Ribbon Runners - ONE of these was my vote for Best In Show, but all of these made a case for the nomination by standing tall, even in a field as rich as this year’s.

  • Protocol
  • Etiolated Light
  • The Kuolema
  • Structural Integrity
  • Repeat the Ending
  • I Am Prey

McGruber Honorarium - “making life saving inventions out of household materials”
Works exhibiting innovations of some stripe, most of which don’t explode!

  • The Kuolema
  • Mamertine
  • Stygian Dreams
  • I Am Prey
  • The Roads Not Taken

Snack Bowl – Works to greedily gobble down and tickle pleasure centers, nutritious content be damned!

  • Beat Me up Scotty
  • Insomnia
  • Aesthetics Over Plot
  • Your Post Apocalyptic To Do List
  • Elftor and the Quest of the Screaming King
  • Write Or Reflect
  • Mirror

Pulp Corn Bowl – Works paying narrative tribute to a recognizeably specific adventure fiction tradition.

  • Kuolema
  • Lady Thalia and the Masterpiece of Moldavia
  • Galaxy Jones
  • Marie Waits
  • Secret of the Black Walrus

And the moment you have all been waiting for. Our panel of entertainment judges, absolutely NOT out of work entertainers and hangers on themselves, have evaluated and selected the best work to embody each Spice Girl in intfiction.org’s own…

The Spice Invaders

(an IF Spice Girl Tribute Band) - from all the Wannabes, marvel at the Power of 5 selected to Get Down With Me and Spice Up Your Life. Its Too Much! Who Do You Think You Are? Step to Me. These Saturday Night Divas are Too Much!

  • Baby Spice: Beat Me Up Scotty
  • Ginger Spice: Marie Waits
  • Posh Spice: Repeat the Ending
  • Scary Spice: Etiolated Light
  • Sporty Spice: Write or Reflect?

And Finally, while I did not intend to document my ribbon nominations here, there is one nomination I feel needs further explanation.

JJMcC’s ASTOOT nomination for…

The Best 8 lines of IF, 2023 - goes to…

 _________      __                     _____                     
 __/ ____/___ _/ /___ __  ____  __     __/ /___  ____  ___  _____
 _/ / __/ __ `/ / __ `/ |/ / / / /____ _/ / __ \/ __ \/ _ \/ ___/
 / /_/ / /_/ / / /_/ />  </ /_/ / _/ /_/ / /_/ / / / /  __(__  ) 
 \____/\__,_/_/\__,_/_/|_|\__, /  _\____/\____/_/ /_/\___/____/  
 _____________________________/

[Your score has just gone up by one point.]

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Ahaha, this stumped me for about two minutes. I think I need sleep :joy:

Also, woohoo!! Made it onto two lists!! :grin: And what an amazing set of titles to share the lists with!!

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Thanks for the shoutout JJ McC!

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I will wear this with pride :stuck_out_tongue:

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Lol, I really took a 100 mile journey for a 2’ joke there!

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So very true!

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I would hardly call using ai to generate game text and or images and drive a car and also possibly my thermostat an experiment that could possibly eventually explode in my face! No, this soot was already there.

found in the McGruber Mortuarium

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A quick apology to the authors. Because I am incapable of holding more than a single thought in my head (realistically, maybe .8 of a thought), I chased some shiny things and forgot to update reviews onto IFDB. Correcting that now, and over the next few days.

Thanks again for a great ST23. As I often find myself saying to my wife: “Please don’t interpret my thoughtlessness as lack of caring.”

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At least you thought to do that, amirite?

We’ll welcome you adding reviews–in fact often reviews that appear after the fact are a great nudge to say “Hey! This entry? You wanted to look at it? Well, here’s another nudge!”

There are going to be a lot of reviews like that for me, because I didn’t get to nearly as many entries as you did!

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