Hello to all my Grand Masquerade Fam.

Today I'm posting this chapter to clean up the clutter that messed up this entire award. Well, let's just say that the past few days hadn't really been entertaining for me. I spent nights regretting my decisions both off and on Wattpad. I really can't discern whether I'm done with my family issues yet but I'm definitely done with the experience I had on Wattpad recently.

I went through the accusatory comments flooding the result and announcement chapters and I must say some of you turned it into your own battlegrounds, to say the least, and I'm definitely not pleased. But I'll be coming back to it later on.

So first starting with the review that sparked all the controversies:

I'm going to delete it, BUT only the two controversial reviews that were judged unfairly according to some of the Wattpaders over here. The rest of the judgment will remain unaffected. The reviews published in TGM awards are by no means meant to offend readers and fandoms. Additionally, the personal reviews given by the assigned judges don't represent the ideology of the awards or the opinion of the host i.e. me.

Talking of the biased judgment and to again clear my stand on it, I did read the judge's reviews and was very well aware of its wordings, though its impact was vague to me which later resulted in so much upheaval. To answer those who accused me of not having read the reviews and just pasting them here in result chapters without a care, for your kind information, this is not how it really works. Because if I had done so, this unwanted situation would have arisen long ago.

To begin with, I take judgments of the different categories in doc format submitted by judges. After the submission, I 'proofread' the reviews. Yes, you heard that right. But only for the sake of checking any grammatical & spelling mistakes, to check if the scores are given in different criteria and summed up correctly or not, etc.

For real instance, I came across a few reviews where a particular paragraph was repeated twice. Some reviews had punctuation errors like forgetting full stops at the end of every statement. A judge gave marks in BLURB criteria out of 5 which was supposed to be out of 10 which resulted in wrong scores. You may not believe it, but I even received multiple results where the judge had tallied the scores incorrectly resulting in erroneous scorecards with vast differences of even about 15 marks. I won't be mentioning the names of the judges because that's not the matter here, but to come up and say that the host did little to go through the reviews and posted them without any care is simply a false accusation. I remember all these minute details because I've spent hours on the reviews sent by the judges, I still have the docs as proof but I won't be disclosing them.

I proofread the reviews to eliminate the aforementioned issues, not to cut down the statements of the judges as per my wish just because I'm the host. The duty and responsibility of a Wattpad award host is the same as any other real-life award host. My responsibility is to look after the proceedings of the award and make sure everything runs smoothly in a properly determined manner. I still stick to my notion that I've no say in the judgment of a particular judge and I definitely have no right to edit their statements until and unless it uses abusive language. Believe me, no judge would want that to happen without their consent.

Second thing, it's true that I'd initially planned to talk about the review to the judge but later on I dropped the idea and I've valid reasons for that. First would be that I thought it would be better to release it in the public domain, not because I had intentions to hurt or demotivate the talented writers but because the one-sided and stereotypical views of such claimed judges shouldn't be hidden from the public. I needed to know not just as a host but also as a fellow BTS fanfiction writer about the stand of others on such reviews.

Honestly, I know it has hurt so many wattpaders that I let the review slide into public so easily but I thought about it differently. Why should I cover such views and statements that are offending to BTS Fanfic writers and may trouble the judge itself? If I did ask her to eliminate those offending words, and let's suppose she removed those sentences which I doubt she'd have if I really had asked her, what's the guarantee she wouldn't have repeated such thing in some other awards or anywhere else? Nobody would've known about the entire ordeal. As a host, is it my job to cover up for such statements that the judge herself wrote? She's definitely not a kid and knows very well the impact of her words. When she herself wasn't bothered to not write such offending criticisms, what's the purpose of asking her to rephrase her reviews?

On second thought, what's the guarantee that if I'd asked her to edit her judgment before posting it publicly because it bore controversial notions she'd have agreed to it? What if I'd have been accused instead that 'the TGM award host is trying to manipulate the results and favoring her fellow author friends'? None of you would've known the reason. Let me ask you: How many of you would've then stood up for me? I guess, none. That might sound harsh but that is how it is.

It's really easy for you people to say that as a host I could've handled this better by not posting the results or editing the offending sentences without releasing it in public or by asking the judge to edit her review. But it's easier said than done. You'd have known if you'd have even for once put yourselves in my shoes. Certain things are not handled emotionally but professionally keeping in mind the pros and cons. In a situation like this, I could only find myself adhering to 'transparency is the key'.

Many of you were concerned that such harsh reviews might hurt the talented writers and they might stop writing. I don't deny that, I know how much it hurts. But let me tell you, just as much as you know that the review most probably stemmed from a stereotypical perspective, authors like SSears90 and 4eversherlocked very well know their worth as writers and I bet on it that they know that their talent cannot be easily overshadowed by such unbalanced criticisms. To tell those who don't know, both authors are my wattpad inspirations and I'm an ardent fan of their works. You probably won't believe but they are the authors I refer to in interviews when asked about recommendations, these are the interviews that I gave long before this entire ordeal even took place.

Now, I don't know how many of you stumbled upon the statement of the judge posted in the announcement chapter but I'm here to address it.

Yes, I'd her judgment since 20th May but that doesn't mean that I read her reviews the very same day she submitted them. As a host myself, I'd plenty of things to juggle with and I still do. At the time, I'd been busy judging mini-categories. On top of that, due to my leniency or whatever you may call it, I received the final judgments from all the judges after a series of chasing till 30th June. My plan had been to release the results of all the main categories altogether after reviewing them one by one. Now I accept the fact that it's my fault that I delayed the reviewing of the judgements till the first week of July before beginning to release them.

I've clearly mentioned my reasons for not reaching out to her to redo her reviews above but the fact that she called my apology on her behalf as a major copout seems utterly nonsensical to me. I had to apologize because of her. It wasn't me who blabbered biased statements like "BTS fans will read and love the book based on that merit alone" and "BTS fans won't care what they read, as long as it's BTS". These are the most offending statements of hers that triggered the BTS fanfic readers, and it really sounded childish and hypocritical coming from her.

I must gotta praise her for accusing me of not posting the chapter with any prior apology/awareness for the biased reviews she gave in her judgments. If you knew that your biased words might trigger people, why did you do that in the first place? She's literally keeping a count of the timeline that I posted the apology six hours after the results were announced but is she not going to acknowledge why I had to apologize to start with?

I don't know how it was my deliberate choice that threw my entire award book into a chaotic fuss because of a judge's biased and demeaning reviews only to later come on me accusing me that I'm covering my a** and left everything on her to deal with? Is it really because of me that we all have to go through this? Are you not going to acknowledge your part in it? After all, it started from you and then you expect me to end it? Not gonna happen.

Coming to her other statement, I consider the fact that my award book did not have any special FANFICTION category. But that doesn't account for the biased and triggering statements that came from the judge in her review. She was assigned to be the judge of the Paranormal/Supernatural category and I did not mean to impose fanfictions on judges who were uncomfortable judging them.

I'd also like to clear myself that I'll not be debating over the scores given by the judge but the main issues are the certain highlighting statements that seemed to trigger off people. This also brought another pressing concern in my opinion, that FANFICTIONS are pre-conceived as different from other genres. It seems like certain people think that fan fiction has storylines that don't fit into normal categories such as romance, mystery, or paranormal.

You tell me, if a particular book has a story that revolves around real-life characters but the story is fictitious belonging to a specific genre, is it undeserving of competing with other stories with normal characters in that very genre? Does the tag of FANFICTION mean that the story just focuses on simping over real-life characters and building fantasies about them? Does it mean that all fanfiction stories are not suitable to be categorized into other genres even if it has the main elements such as romance, crime, mystery, etc? To me, this ideology sounds unfair and stereotypical where people seem too bothered by the fact that it's a fanfiction and hence predetermine it as undesirable of getting nominated in other main genres.

The judge's reviews seemed to be highly affected by the same. I'm still not over the fact that her response to all the chaos that ensued did not bear even a chink of apology from her side for the triggering words she presented so nonchalantly, not to mention that she rather chose to come up to slam blame on me instead, not caring of her deeds in the first place. Thinking of it now again, I'll still say that I'd foreseen the triggered reactions of the people and I'd also foresaw the lack of regret in the judge's response.

After all the stances put forward, now I hope you'll know why I didn't choose to reach out to her for the redo. A person who still hasn't any sense of regret for her biased words that hurt people but dared to play the blame game even after all that happened, how can I expect that the person would've listened to me if I'd asked her to redo her judgment without fearing that she would in turn accuse me of being involved in manipulation of the results?

Even now, I deeply apologize to all those whose feelings were hurt. So were mine, and honestly, after this incident I find myself aloof from the world of Wattpad. A few people called my earlier apology superficial, insincere, fake, and whatnot and I do not doubt that there will be people today as well who will still blame me for it. It did hurt me, big time. I experienced something like this for the first time and to be true, it has left me wounded for sure.

With that, I also regret to announce that I've decided to drop the judgment of the remaining mini-categories. These categories will be suspended so the entries as well. I'm sorry but I find myself unable to continue with this award any longer. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Hosting an award book on Wattpad was my dream project, but I feel sorry that it had to end this way. Somewhere I still feel I failed in my part as a host. I think I'll have to carry this burden for some time now.

Anyways, last but not the least a heartfelt apology to my fellow author friends 4eversherlocked and SSears90. You guys had to go through a lot and I deeply regret that. I hope you'll not let these criticisms get you and shut the haters with your commendable talent by incorporating these criticisms to improve your work. You guys are lucky to have such ardent supporters and readers who know how to stand up for their beloved writers.

Also for the judge, this chapter is being published today after 7 days the results were announced. Not merely because I decided to turn my back on you and leave everything on you but because my family needed me. I didn't disappear but took an announced break because I've got a life outside Wattapd that is more important to me more than anything else. Please add this too in your record of timelines, you might need it later on.

Signing off

HOST, BabyGinger