X-Men: Evolution OC Tournament Phase 2 Rules

Phase 2 has begun for the The X-Men: Evolution OC Tournament.



Tournament Phase 2 Begins: November 6th
Tournament Phase 2 Ends: December 6th

Welcome, Hoodlings!  You have arrived at the dumpy little Brotherhood Boarding House with a bunch of other scruffy-looking weird kids.  NEW FWIENDS GUYS!  Or new enemies.  Either way, it turns out that there's NOT enough room for all fourteen of you in the Boarding House.  So, Mystique, and her infinite mysterious funds, has purchased the house next door and has fixed it up (read: made the boys fix it up) so that you and your compadres are now all staying at the BROTHERHOOD ANNEX!  Boys are on the second floor, girls are on the third.  Each room comes with two twin beds (except for the triple rooms which have a bunk bed and a single twin bed) in addition to two desks and storage space enough for two people's clothing (again, if it's triple occupancy, add one to the desks and storage space). It's up to you and your fellow contestants how you arrange your OCs within their rooms.

The Annex is next door to the Brotherhood Boarding House in order to facilitate stronger bonds between your OCs. They will likely only see the other Brotherhood members at meal times and during training. Please remember: We are MUCH MORE INTERESTED in seeing your OC interact with the OTHER OCs. Please try to keep OC-Canon character interaction to a minimum.  

Roommate assignments, ya hoods.  Here they are:
HOODLING ROOMMATE ASSIGNMENTS
1. Grey Force / Thriller
2. Imagica / Evanesce
3. Eden / Shriek
4. KarmaKameleon / Red Scarf
5. Razor Radar / Madidus Unda / Gravedigger
6. Medusa / Tazer / U-Haul

And now... the part you've ALL been waiting for. Your TEAM ASSIGNMENTS, and for your first mission. You are going to draw a comic, at least one page in length, about the mission I give your team. How YOU see the mission going does NOT HAVE TO MATCH UP WITH HOW THE OTHER CONTESTANTS DO. You can read more about that in the OFFICIAL PHASE 2 RULES below. Which you should be reading ANYWAY.

TEAM ASSIGNMENTS AND MISSIONS

Team 1 (Lance)
The Brotherhood is out of food, AGAIN.  Time to go shoplifting!  You arrive at the location ready to steal till your heart's content, you have one restriction, don't show off your powers.  That kind of attention makes future shoplifting events harder.  Lance is waiting outside in the Jeep because he's the getaway car...plus they know his face there.  You get inside and the place looks almost crawling with security guys and cameras.  Do you prove yourself by getting the job done or do you just run away?  Do you use your powers even though your not supposed to?  Lance isn't there, you could get away with it.  But what if someone sees you?  What do you do?
  
Grey Force
Razor Radar
Evanesce
U-Haul

Team 2 (Toad)
Mystique has given to Toad the job of re-shingling the Annex.  And by given to Toad, that means, given to YOU.  You're stuck on the roof trying to get the roof patched up when a storm starts to brew overhead.  Toad has abandoned your team (get used to it) when the storm starts.  Suddenly, a tree branch crashes into electrical wires snapping them to the ground.  The jostling of this also knocks over the ladder, stranding your team on the roof.  Do you continue to do the assignment given to you?  Do you remove the wires from the road?  What happens?  What if someone gets hurt by it?  Do you care?  How will you get down?  If you can get down do you help your teammates?

Gravedigger
Thriller
Imagica
KarmaKameleon

Team 3 (Freddy)
It has been decided that with the new mutant-hating groups and threats to mutant life, all mutants should know how to get out of a capturing situation.  You have been blindfolded and taken to a remote location (where it is and what it's like is up to you).  Here, you have had any weapons and communication devices removed and have been tied to your other teammates in the center and need to escape.  If you do not escape within twenty minutes, Freddy will come and get you and no doubt "tsk" a lot at you.  However, after twenty minutes is up (you decide what happens in those twenty minutes) it is clear that Freddy has forgotten about you.  You are now in an unknown location and need to return to the Boarding House.  How do you get there?  What do you do for help?  Do you stick together or try to find your own way back?  What do you do?

Medusa
Tazer
Shriek

Team 4 (Pietro)
POWER CONTROL LESSONS!  And who has better control over their powers than Pietro?  And believe me, he shows you how awesome he is.  Just when you think his arrogance and showboating couldn't get any more aggravating, he informs you that you have to fight your teammates to show him how good control over your powers you have.  Do you fight your teammates?  Walk away?  Who wins?  

Madidus Unda
Eden
Red Scarf

Please note that Wanda and Mystique will be supervising your trails.  Mystique could be anywhere are anytime in case you try to do harm to your leaders.  So please, don't trying to beat up your leader, even if they are doing something really stupid or annoying.  Wanda and Mystique will kick your butt. (Besides, this is all about your character's interaction with OTHER OC's not with the canon characters.)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Phase 2 involves putting the kid gloves away and start the ELIMINATION.  THIS IS AN ELIMINATION ROUND.  There will be six phases in total.  After each phase, OC's will be eliminated.  There will be three Hoodlings eliminated after this phase.  If your character is eliminated this doesn't necessarily mean these OCs are leaving the Brotherhood Annex, just that they're going to be more... spectator characters. If your character isn't eliminated, huzzuh! You get to go on to Phase 3, and make another comic. If you're not comfortable with your character being in the contest while YOU are not, please send us a note and we'll announce to the rest of the contestants that your character has left, and is to no longer appear in any comics.   

This should go without stating, but if you DON'T turn in an comic for Phase 2, you will be automatically eliminated. Don't make us do that, plz. It'll make us sad.  

You entries will be judged by five MYSTERY judges (though I'm sure you can guess two of them ).  Some of which are Evo fans, some of which know nothing about X-men at all. This is to gather an UNBIASED oppinion on your story telling skills, as well as how well you're fitting into the X-universe.  The judges will read these comics and rate.

PLEASE READ ALL THE RULES  If you don't want to read those giant paragraphs, just read the underlined parts.  If you have QUESTIONS about the underlined parts...read the paragraph.  MAKE SURE YOU READ THE ENTIRE JOURNAL BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION.  I REALLY don't want to facepalm this Phase.  Please don't make me.  Please read first.

PHASE 2 RULES:

Rule 1: No relationships with canon characters. Though this is a rule that's already been stated in the OFFICIAL RULES I felt it need restating.  There are NO RELATIONSHIPS with canon characters.  They cannot be the child, sibling, parent, friend, or lover of a canon character. They can't have gone to school with them, have seen them once in a book store, their uncle can't know your character's father... NO INVOLVEMENT. IN ANY. WAY. They don't even know the canon characters EXIST until they meet them at the mansion/boarding house.  There is NO BUDDING ROMANCE.  This is NO PLACE for your OCxCanon love, you WILL be disqualified.  Can they TALK to your character, yes.  Compliment them?  On SKILL and personality only.  I don't want, "You're so hot!" or "I've never met ANYONE like you." or "You have such gorgeous hair."  All compliments should be based on skill.  Canon characters and OCs have a boss-employee relationship only, acquaintances at most.  Your piece should FOCUS on your OC and the ones in your group.

Rule 2: No addition of more canon characters. Other mutants or non, you can't include any more canon characters we haven't established.  No Gambit, Jubilee, Magneto, Duncan Matthews, no one.  You can only work with the canon characters we've mentioned are around.  If you want to insert canon characters in background, fine.  If you MUST, but you CANNOT interact with them.

Rule 3: No outside OCs. We got to meet your OC's friends, enemies, family, dog, etc., in their intro comic.  WE DO NOT SEE THOSE CHARACTERS AGAIN.  No family members, old boyfriends, friends from before, etc. coming to visit.  This is about YOUR OC and not about THEIR family.  Can they think/talk about their family?  Sure.  You just can't go into a two page flashback about them.  You can have your character getting off the phone with their aunt, just not have seven pages of them talking on the phone.  NOTE: If your character brought a PET with them, they may interact with the pet.  But be sure to react to the situation and to your teammates/roommates/others as well if not MORE SO.

Rule 4: Be kind to other contestants. Don't cuss out other contestants and call their character's "lame" or "stupid" or whatever.  If you want YOUR character to fight THEIR character, that's another story, but there's no attacking the creator or their idea of the character.  This also means no killing off teammates...unless it's okay with the creator and this information is sent to Blaze and myself before the comic is drawn.  We will need a note from the creator stating that it is okay if so-and-so kills off their character.

Rule 5: No interaction with opposing team members. Hoodlings, don't mess with the New Recruits.  New Recruits, don't mess with the Hoodlings.  Later ON opposing teams will meet, but for Phase 2, STAY ON YOUR OWN SIDE!

Rule 6: Comics must be at least one page in length.  You can do more than one page but no less.  There should be at LEAST two panels on a comic page.

Rule 7: There should be minimal involvement from canon leaders.  Each team is given a canon character leader.  You CAN draw them in your comic.  However, we have set up the prompts to focus on OC interaction with limited to no leader involvement.  This is so that you can work with other contestants.  If you WANT to have your leader interact with your team or OC, that's fine.  Just don't make their involvement a focus and keep Rule 1 in mind.

Rule 8: You can make your OC teammates react however you want.  That's right!  You don't have to ask for the creator's permission to draw their character.  Your story does NOT have to match up with any other member of your team's story.  If you want OC #1 to go run away from the problem, sure.  It's YOUR comic!  We encourage that you try and stick with the personalities of your teammates as best you can.  Read their bios and intro comics to get a better feel for the character.  REMEMBER: Your story is your own, it does NOT have to match up with other stories and you CAN control other OCs within your story (just try and make their personalities match up with the bios).

Rule 9: You do NOT have to include other OCs in your comic. We ENCOURAGE that you include your teammates in your comic, but if you'd rather have your OC solve the problem on your own, that's your choice.  Including your teammates in your comic is NOT a requirement.

Rule 10: Stick within your own prompt.  If you're in Team 1 there's no seeing what Team 2 is up to.  Stick with your team and within the perimeters of your situation.  If you want to have a small tidbit of your OC talking to their roommate BEFORE they start on their mission, that's okay.  Just remember that once the assignment starts, you stick with it.  

Rule 11: Submit all comic pages WHEN THE COMIC IS COMPLETED.  Do NOT submit comic pages one at a time as you complete them.  Note the entire comic to the club all together.  You can submit the comic without an ending if you're running late, but keep in mind that we're judging based on STORY.

Rule 12: Your piece will be judged on creativity, clarity, and conformity.  WE ARE NOT JUDGING ON ARTISTIC SKILL!  This means that not only will your piece be judged on how interestingly and innovatively you complete your assignment, but also on how CLEAR the storytelling is and how well it remains within the parameters of the prompt.  If we don't know what's going on in the story, that's a problem.  Please make sure what's going on is obvious.  We'll be judging you on it this round.  Also, stick within your prompt and work with what we've given you.  If you make aliens come land and rescue you, that might be frowned upon.  REMINDER: As a few round one entries demonstrate, you can draw stick figures, and STILL have it clear what's going on in the story. DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED by your artistic level, we're not judging you on that!

Rule 13: Note your comic entries to the correct club. New Recruits (X-Men) are to be submitted to the Evo-Obsessed-Club.  Hoodlings (Brotherhood) are to be submitted to TheBrotherhoodclub.  Send your comic pages in a NOTE to the clubs.  A NOTE.  

Rule 14: Link your comic pages together Okay this isn't a RULE per say, more or less a pet peeve of mine.  If you make a multi-paged comic...FOR THE LOVE OF MAGNETO, link to the next comic page in the artist's comments of your piece.  This makes it MUCH easier for teammates, other contestants, and judges (WINKWINK) to navigate through your comics.  Okay, it's not a REQUIREMENT, but if you DON'T do it...you're going to frustrate me.  And I'm going to make this face >(.  A lot.  Yeah.

Rule 15: This is a VISUAL ART tournament.  Sorry writers!  We need to keep the medium consistent and comics is a great way of marrying two popular media, visual and written.  Writers, you can team up with artists if you want!  Artists, you can team up with writers!  It's part of what this tournament is about, bringing our Evo Community together.

Rule 16: Have fun! This is a FUN competition!  Don't take it so seriously or stress too much.  It's supposed to be fun and help you bond with others.  Go out there and talk to creators, make friends!  Enemies!  Go on you scamps, enjoy.

Tournament Phase 2 Begins: November 6th
Tournament Phase 2 Ends: December 6th