It was hard, upon my word, it was one of the most suffered things done for the site, but I finally managed to make it.

The winners are ready to be announced, but before I proceed, I want to make clear some things that have delayed the process so far, and maybe bothering you all with some site history.

This site was founded, as some of you may already know, by Sophie and Laila back in November 2003. At that time I was "hired" as a Super Moderator and accepted the invitation pretty eagerly, as I believed in the premises that were explained to me by the girls.

We all wanted a more mature place where we could share our humble creations, talk about celebrity obsessions, but also find the way to improve writing techniques and skills. We had all met on EWFN and we did not like the way things were handled there at that time.
So we created our own board and tried to make it run the way we wanted to, giving respect to each member and expecting from each member respect and tact in each intervention of theirs on this site.

We wanted to find a way to improve our writing skills, as much as the whole fan fiction thing, considered as a simple "diversion" could allow us to; a way to spend our free time pleasently and then share it with our fellow obsessors.
We did not aim for perfection (like other sites, where members are not given even the benefit of the doubt, and dummy moderators are created to forward the "bad news"), although we did not want to manage a "kindergarten" as well.

Not all of us are James Joyce, but we have to do our best to follow the rules of good writing. Having fun while writing and learning how to write, that was one of the goals we had in mind.

When Laila first thought of holding Summer Awards she had in mind to run them all on her own, and we all agreed this should be her main task as an Administrator of the board.

I was asked to share the burden of "Administrator-ship" only in late June.
I accepted eagerly and had given for granted that the Awards would have been handled by Laila as promised. I left for my holidays and when I was back I realized that the Awards were still "pending".

People who know Laila, know as well that it is not her way of handling things to leave them half way; she is a very serious girl who likes to bring to an end everything she does. She hasn't been able to access the site for a while (I do not want to go into details on the matter), so when I realized someone had to do the dirty job, I tugged my sleeves and started to make the "ship enter the haven" safely.

So, here we are to the final Announcement! A little bit late, I know! But aren't they the "Summer" Awards? It is still summer, isn't it?

You'll notice that we have some ex-aequos. I did not feel like to put up another poll for that, so I'll simply leave it as it is and give the awards to both members. After all the very members had won in other categories, so had made it to belong to the category of winners anyhow.

Awards. How are they going to be handled?
Differently from the past we are not giving away any banner.

I have created a special Member Category called "Summer '04 Awards Winners" where all winners will be gathered. Such category will be visible under your avatar and will be highlighted by a blue box (created by the wonderful Mena - thanks girl! ) and the colour of the alias will be Yellowgreen instead of the normal cyan.

The winners are entitled to choose their own titles; so please, once you read the announcement, PM me with the title you chose and I will put it up for you (please use no more than 25 characters, space included). They will also have the chance to host in their PM Box up to 65 pms, instead of the normal 50 that each of us has.

The Moderators who won awards will keep their Moderators icon, but will have an indication of their victory in their title. Follow me in the restricted forum and we can discuss about it.

I think this was honestly all.
We did the best we could, and it sincerely grieved me to hear that somebody rumored that we delayed posting the names of the winners because we wanted to change them the way we wanted; this is a serious offence to our integrity and honestly, there would be no way to cheat, as votes are clearly posted on this board and visible to anyone.

Next time we will do our best to run the awards in a stricter way so that no cloud will come over the fun.

If any of you has anything to say, remember that we are open to any confrontation: stand up and tell us what you think does not work.
Discussion is the healthy base of any adult relationship. Do it following the rules of this site and we will be glad to open to confrontation.

Thank you all for the kind patience you showed by arriving to the end of this post and for participating to the first edition of the General Awards!

Without further ado, I am going to announce the winners!

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU ALL!!!



:bloom:

The Artist:

Best Author: Bloomiecurse

Best Poet: Mena

Best Style Smashing Adri

Best Plotting Mena

Best Reliablity White Andy

Best Bannermaker Smashing Adri

The Fiction:


Best (continuuous) Fiction Last chance on the stairway - Bloomiecurse

Best concluded Fiction Pandora's Box - Magikal Rhiannon

Best Shortstory Entertain me - Aurora

Best Title Da Vinci's muse - Kimibloom

Best Storyline/Plot Maybe I am amazed - Kimibloom

Best Dialogue Fools like us - Bloomiecurse

Best Descriptions The Lord's will - Laila

Best Credibility/realism/details The warning sign - Bloomiecurse

Best portrayal of the celebrities Friends - Ambrosia


Best Love Scene Last chance on the stairway - Bloomiecurse

Best Kiss (EX_AEQUO) Friends - Ambrosia & The China Trilogy - Laila

Best Sex-scene: Last chance on the stairway - Bloomiecurse

Best Action Scene White Lies and wild nights - Mena

Best Horror/Suspense scene Trust - hollybaggins & Magikal Rhiannon

Best Comedy scene Fools like us - Bloomiecurse

Best Dream/Illusion scene Kind of magic - White Andy

Best Tearjerker Lucky 13 - Jaime Girl

Best use of music/songs Friends - Ambrosia

Best Slash The China Trilogy - Laila

Best Non-english Fiction (EX AEQUO) Un montòn de estrellas & Tabaco Y Chanel - White Andy

The Reader:


Most creative Replier Ryvyan

Most reliable Replier Ambrosia

Most motivating/inspiring Replier (EX AEQUO) Mena & Smashing Adri

Best conscructive Critic Laila

Wow, after so much waiting, here we are! Thank you to all of you girls, who took up the charge of counting the votes and settle up this all.

Congratulations to all those who won, you deserve it and even more! Sad that we cannot be all winners... :cry:

Shall we celebrate, now?
:laola:

Fisrt of all I want to: CONGRATULATE ALL WINNERS!!!!!!
You all deserve it!!!

I also want to direct some attention to Ursi who has done a great deal to make this a succes in the end. She put a lot of hard work and efforts in it...when the awards where suddenly left hanging. All of us members and mods alike must consider ourselves lucky with an admin like her.

I also want to say that I think you have said a lot of good things in this letter/ announcement Ursi. It states exactly what we want, think and expect. How we see this forum and how we hope everyone sees it. We work hard (very hard) to make this place work and rumours about cheating come hard. I don't think Laila, Ursi or anyone of us deserve that. So say it in our face or else say nothing. This is our spare time to!
I love doing this and I don't need thank you's but please a bit of respect for us.
Thanks!!!
With much love
Dana

Hi,

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks for the award on the creativity reader award. Not sure if I entirely deserve it actually, but uh, thanks anyway!

I'm actually miffed that there were rumours that the delay was of possible changes to the results to the tabulators' liking. I'm glad that Bloomiecurse cleared that up because I believe that one of the objective of awards is to be as true and fair in the majority's view of what is good and what is not.

Like Bloomiecurse said, the moderators would definitely make the next awards a more successful one with no doubts if possible. And I need to be more active but let's not go there :blush: *cough*

A huge thank you to all the tabulators who have done their best in ensuring the results are accurate!

Congratulations to all the winners.

At the end of the day everyone is a winner. As corny as it sounds it's true. ^_^

Much Love And Respect,
Louise.
xx

Congratulations everyone!!!!!!!!!!!! All very much deserved!!!!!!! And congrats to the Mods for running these awards...I understand that it was difficult, but you've all done a wonderful job and it's very much appreciated!! :)

Jaime

YAYYY!! Congratulations to all the winners! Everyone is deserved of the recognition!! We have a wonderful bunch of writers here, and that goes for everyone, not just the winners.

And of course, Ursi...my utmost and sincere thank you for all the work you did, girl.
I mean this when I say, you have re-vamped and breathed life into a dying place and it's of my opinion, that the site is even better than before.

Congratulations everyone!!!

xooxx
Kimi

Man, I feel like dreaming. I'd like to thank all my readers because all I do is because of you, so thank you so much girls and I hope I can keep on giving you the best of me forever. :hug:

Really, I am so excited right now! Thanks a million and a million to everyone who voted for my story. I feel so honored! You girls are the best. :wub:

And, congratulations to all the winners! :x

After being absent for over a week due to highly obnoxious computer problems I finally got my hands on a PC again so I could visit this site again. Imagine my surprise when I visited this thread and saw that I actually won something! :woot:

Thanks a lot, I really really really times hundred appreciate it, and of course congratz to all the other winners as well!!

:yay: