Honestly it's just pathetic at this point that we have so many dropouts and people who didn't hand in. I'm not going to go off on a rant, but really. We're giving free passes to the Quarterfinals. That's kind of sad.

Bonus Points:

The first entry was submitted by Shadow Thantoes Morte! Congratulations- an additional half point will be added to your score, and we've provided a slightly extended feedback. However, as we are reaching the conclusion of the Games, feedback will be considerably shorter for all of you, not given for entries late but close to the deadline, and not provided at all after the Quarterfinals.

The 'Most Suspenseful Obstacle' was a difficult choice to make, but we've decided to award it to Montgomery 'Monty' Bean for a nerve-wrecking, action-packed scene against the troll. Congratulations- you've earned an additional 0.5 points!

The majority of you had similar reactions to what your tributes saw in the mirror, but one slightly different response caught my eye. This was the interpretation Esther Tehnos made- what she saw in the mirror as making her weak, contrary to a longing for home or sadness at what could have been. You've earned an additional 0.5 points- congratulations!

District 1 Male: Flame Pheonix Pirkas

    Dropped out.

District 2 Female: Slate Welby

Dropped out.

District 3 Female: Rosella Van Carter

Paella's Score: 10

Pluto's Score: 9.5

    Feedback: Despite that I know you stayed up considerably late working on this, I still think you managed to produce a great entry. I found the entire chess scene fascinating, and the entire entry went on at a good pace. You explained Rosella's experience with chess well, yet had her still be challenged by the enemy moves, which I thought was very realistic of you. I really love that you don't portray Rosella as invincible- this isn't the first time I noticed it, but I feel like it brings the reader closer to her. The only things I would really say with this entry are that there were a few times where the sentences seemed to ramble a bit, stretching on slightly longer than preferred. I would have liked maybe a little more with the mirror, but you were obviously pressed for words, and what you had did the job.

    Final Score: 9.75 (-1.5) = 8.25 (Flipped) = 5.25

District 4 Male: Kanai Lathan

Paella's Score: 8.25

Pluto's Score: 8.75

    Feedback: Your entry seemed to go by really fast, and I felt like you rushed through it. There was a lot that you could have done with the keys, and I was missing a lot of emotion. There were brief flashes of it, but I was still craving more throughout the entry. All in all, the piece struck me as a bit straightforward. Try stretching the scenes out in future entries.

    Final Score: 8.5 (+0.5) (-3) = 6 (Flipped) = 6

District 4 Female: Katelyn "Kate" Dodger

Paella's Score: 9.5

Pluto's Score: 10

    Feedback: Used extension.

    Final Score: 9.75 (-1.5) = 8.25

District 5 Male: Montgomery 'Monty' Bean

Paella's Score: 7.25

Pluto's Score: 6.75

    Feedback: Late entry.

    Final Score: 7 (+0.5) (-1, late entry) = 6.5

District 5 Female: Esther Tehnos

Paella's Score: 9

    Pluto's Score: 9.5

    Feedback: Used extension.

    Final Score: 9.25 (+0.5) (-2) = 7.75

District 6 Male: Devin Eifa Alvah

Dropped out.

District 6 Female: Ashlyn Roxen

Paella's Score: 3.75

    Pluto's Score: 3.25

    Feedback: No note provided.

    Final Score: 3.5 (-2, did not complete task requirements) = 1.5

District 7 Female: Aspen Kinsley

Paella's Score: 9.5

    Pluto's Score: 9

    Feedback: For some reason, this entry really resonated with me- especially the last few paragraphs, so let's start at the end. Despite that the scene with the Mirror of Erised was short, I got a lot of emotion from it, and the last line of the piece really ended it on a nice note. However, realistically, is she really going to have already read Harry Potter to know what the Mirror of Erised is? I don't know if that's completely accurate. Onto the potions, though- the thought process when Aspen was deciding which potion to take was intriguing and engaging, but I would have liked her mistake to be a little more obvious. It was brushed over, and yeah, I noticed the change, but it would be considerably more effective to bring it out a little more. Additionally, I feel like you had some places where you reverted back to telling instead of showing- for instance, when Aspen uncovered the error she made.

    Final Score: 9.25 (Ballot Immunity) = 9.25

District 11 Male: Shadow Thantoes Morte

Paella's Score: 7.25

    Pluto's Score: 7.75

    Feedback: I found your entry difficult to score this time around. You had a lot of advanced vocabulary, but I still find it tough to get past the punctuation and spelling errors, incomplete sentences, and various homophone confusions such as "they're" and "their", "worn" and "warn". There were a couple times where your writing failed to make sense, such as in the phrase, "His long body slowly brought themselves down", and I noticed a couple times where you missed the italics for Shadow's internal thoughts. Your description has definitely improved since the beginning of the Games, but I still think you can improve. I liked how you created an image of the winged keys, but the straightforward verbs like, "looked" diminished the quality of the writing. I could see your effort to create similes, but three in the same paragraph and two in the same sentence seemed to overdo it a little. One thing I did really like about your entry, though, was all of Shadow's internal thinking. It seemed realistic, and helped the reader through his thought process. The thoughts definitely helped with the lack of emotion I feel like you had. For example, Shadow appeared completely unfazed to the reader when the broom started moving of its own accord, and by the next paragraph, he was "getting a hang of this thing". If you stretch this moment out and include emotions, the quality of your writing will improve dramatically. I want to be able to feel all of Shadow's fear in that split second. I understand that it can be difficult to portray emotions, but I've found that if you take a metaphor or personify emotions, they tend to be far more effective. You've already been leaning towards similes, so try that! I think you did pull off all of his emotions at the conclusion of the entry, though- it just needs to be like that all throughout the entry.

    Final Score: 7.5 (+0.5) = 8

District 12 Male: Marcus Silverhand

Two strikes, eliminated.

District 13 Female: Xavi Uriendah Liason

Two strikes; eliminated.