Blogger Blitz: Black Sheep – Round One Match Schedule

Greetings, fight fans! The time is very nearly upon us – Blogger Blitz is just around the corner, and our competitors are all itching to get their fingers onto the keyboard. Last Tuesday I held a live drawing on Twitter where all the names of the competitors and the events for the competition were randomly drawn to form pairings for every match. Today, I am going to announce the pairings, the events, and the dates for the matches, and then finish out with some advice for our competitors. So let’s jump right in!

TOTALITARIAN TEATIME
Competitors: Marjolaine (@TheAmbiGamer) and Bowser (@LightningEllen)
Designers: Kim (@LaterLevels) and Chris (@overthinkery1)
Match Date: July 30th, 2018
Results Date: August 2nd, 2018
Word Limit: 1000 words

There’s no battle more heated than the witty barbs tossed across a table where tea is being served. Our evil heroes are hosting a tea party for the other neighborhood villains, but their fiercest rival is present at the party to undermine them. The battle for social control is complicated by the fact that every sentence of conversation drains your stamina bar. While the competitors can only restore conversational stamina by focusing on making their tea, the rival has purchased the Enhanced Male Performance DLC and now has unlimited stamina for the party. Is that the only paid DLC they’re using to get ahead? Can our antagonistic heroes still prove themselves socially superior?

Note for this event that the “fiercest rival” mentioned in the prompt does not have to be the opponent of the match, though it can be. Just know that for the purposes of Blogger Blitz canon (PS, there isn’t such a thing), if you put your opponent in your post and they end up winning, whatever you wrote is gonna be reframed or retconned in the results post later. All powers and abilities are legal, of course, but remember that all actions – even social ones – take stamina and the only way to get it back is to focus exclusively on making tea.

This match will be the first one of the competition, so Athena and Ellen‘s posts will go up on their own blogs (click their names for links) on Monday, July 30th, and the results will be posted here on Adventure Rules on Friday, August 3rd.

GREAT BADDIE BAKE-OFF
Competitors: Xehanort (@overthinkery1) and Thel Vadam (@xGamersUnitedx)
Designers: Chris (@overthinkery1) and Pix (@Pix1001)
Match Date: August 6th, 2018
Results Date: August 10th, 2018
Word Limit: 1000 words

Good guys always get cake. Whether Mario saves the princess or a cartoon mascot needs an energy boost, cake is always there for the protagonists. But when it comes to villains, the cake is a lie. This event is the opportunity to correct this awful slight. Each villain must bake a cake from start to finish, but the ingredients aren’t just sitting out in the open – its going to take some evil ingenuity to locate milk, eggs, flour, and whatever toppings might be desired for this sweet treat. All the while, a Tonberry slowly approaches, immune to all forms of attack, its butcher knife glinting with wicked anticipation. Can our competitors avoid the Tonberry’s knife while preparing a delicious cake? That’s what they’ll have to prove to the judges in the Great Baddie Bake Off!

Where do cake ingredients actually come from? That’s what our competitors get to decide in this event that’s part race, part horror movie as the invulnerable Tonberry slowly approaches. If you’re not familiar with Tonberry, it is a recurring enemy type in the Final Fantasy series that takes a TON of hits to kill and can kill you instantly if it reaches you before you stop it. I wanted this event to feel like your first encounter with a Tonberry in the game; the one you aren’t prepared for, when you fight it like it’s a normal monster and slowly panic as it gets closer, wondering what’s gonna happen, and then find yourself bleeding out on the floor. But maybe if our competitors can make a cake fast enough, it’ll just cut that instead?

This is the second match of round one and the competitors, Chris and Luna, will post their articles on Monday, August 6th, while the results posts will go up here on my blog on August 10th.

BLOGGER BLITZCEPTION
Competitors: Sigma (@flameflash) and fc#@%^asfbg(^%$Y#%sdfv@$5
Designers: Red (@thewellredmage) and Kim (@LaterLevels)
Match Date: August 13th, 2018
Results Date: August 17th, 2018
Word Limit: 1000 words

In a competition where bloggers submit blog posts about their favorite characters for a panel of judges to determine which is the best, they’ll be challenged to write a blog post about their favorite character writing a blog post. Then the post within the post will be judged by the judges to determine which blogger wins, which by extension will determine which blogger wins. What? As if that’s not complicated enough, each villain has been sent a nefarious “helper” by their rivals – a three-headed monkey! The monkey does all the typing for them, so how can each villain use their abilities to influence the monkey to write rightly? It’s the blogger blitz within the Blogger Blitz – it’s Blogger Blitzception!

Blogger Blitz has always been an unusual mess of breaking the fourth wall and establishing a weird sort of meta-awareness of being in a blogging competition, so why not take it to thoroughly ridiculous levels with a whole event about blogging for a competition? Only this time, each competitor is stuck with an unhelpful three-headed monkey who tries to do all the typing for them. All powers are legal to try and influence the monkey to write a coherent post, but remember you’ve got three times the annoying chittering to deal with and while you might be able to get one head under control, drawing all three at once will be a serious challenge.

This is the third match of the first round of Blogger Blitz, but at the time this post is going up, this match may not happen. One of the competitors pulled out of the competition very suddenly, leaving a gaping hole where once there was a villain to compete. I am working to fill the spot as we speak, but if I don’t get a new competitor within a reasonable amount of time (the date of the first match will probably be my cut-off) FlameFlash and Sigma will end up winning this round by default.

PARKING PANIC
Competitors: Frank Fontaine (@gitgudatlife) and Charles Jericho (@AlexSigsworth)
Designers: Pix (@Pix1001) and Reaper (@ReaperActive)
Match Date: August 20th, 2018
Results Date: August 24th, 2018
Word Limit: 1000 words

It’s Villain Con and each competitor is on their way to buy expensive merchandise and listen to panels while surrounded by other uncomfortable, sweaty introverts for hours at a time. Alas, when they reach the parking garage, the only spot left is on the fifth floor. They’ll have to reverse into the final parking space, but to do so they’ll have to battle a boss on each level as they rise. On the first level they’ll face Gandhi from Civilization IV; on the second level they’ll face Kirby from, well, all the Kirbygames; on the third level they’ll face Darkeater Midir from Dark Souls III; and on the fourth level they’ll face Donkey Kong and his classic barrels from Donkey Kong. Find out if our villainous competitors can do the impossible and successfully park their vehicle in Parking Panic!

Goodness, this event is gonna require a little research! I’ll include here links to the Wiki articles for each of these characters for ease of access, so click the names to check out Gandhi, Kirby, Midir, and Donkey Kong. The important thing to note here is that regardless of whether the character actually needs a car to get around, the whole point of the challenge is getting that parking spot on the top floor. So yes, you may have to suspend your disbelief a bit for this one, but hey, that’s what good fiction is all about, amiright? One final note: I’ll allow a very loose interpretation of battle here, so if you want your character to outwit and escape each boss rather than punch them until they die, more power to you.

As the final match of round one, the posts for this bout will appear on the blogs of Michael and Alex on Monday, August 20th, after which the results will appear on the blog of me on Friday, August 24th.

WORDS OF WISDOM
Now before we wrap up today, I want to share some words about competing in the Blogger Blitz, particularly for our newcomers for whom this will be the first time participating in any capacity.

BE EFFICIENT! Each round of the competition has a word limit, and for round one that word limit is 1000 words. There are no limitations on writing style – narrative seemed to be the preferred method last year but everything from structured arguments to sea shanties was tried with varying degrees of success, so feel free to use the style that works best for you. No matter your style, though, remember to pack your 1000 words with content that helps to prove why your character is the best at the event!

THINK DANGEROUS! Blogger Blitz is an odd competition in that while you are competing against another person, you don’t fight them directly. Within your own post, you define the circumstances and how difficult it is for your character to overcome the event. So be sure to craft circumstances which portray your character as overcoming odds that only they could possibly surmount. If the challenge is too easy, it takes some of the impact away from your argument. Judges like to see clever solutions!

KNOW YOUR LIMITS! As much as we love the characters we have chosen, we all know that they have flaws. These are villains, after all – their whole purpose in the game is to lose to the protagonist. What weaknesses might your opponent mention or work into their post? What gaping hole in your armor might make the judges frown if it goes unaddressed? Get ahead of the game and cover your weak points so that when the judges have to consider the negatives of each approach, you’ve already anticipated it and come up with a solution!

HAVE FUN! This is the corniest advice but also the most important. At the end of the day, Blogger Blitz is a goofy contest decided completely at random and judged by the whimsy of a few people who just want to read some cool blog posts. So while you can certainly be serious about winning, be willing to have fun regardless of the outcome. And feel free to apply the philosophy of fun to your posts – references to the games these characters come from can bring an element of humor to lighten everyone’s mood!

That’s it for me today, fight fans! The first match goes up two weeks from today, so that’ll give the writers plenty of time to work on their posts for the competition. In the meantime, if you are excited and want more Blogger Blitz content to tide you over, come and follow Adventure Rules on Twitter where I’m sure we can expect a little bit of smack talk and other shenanigans. And this week in the evenings, I’m planning to share round one matches from last year’s Blitz along with some behind-the-scenes commentary that might prove enlightening for newcomers to the competition. So be sure to swing by!