ontheupsidedown
Hi there. I'm Roe and I used to be a judge for the Gravity Falls Wattys. I wanted to apologize here to the person who felt like the awards were unfair. You were completely dismissed and completely right. The results of this competition were not accurate. Multiple judges felt intimidated by participants and they judged accordingly, myself included.
If you entered the Gravity Falls Wattys, I apologize to you overall. It was not indicative of your writing ability, but it was representative of the cliqueish nature of the fandom at the time. It probably still is that way. I decided for the sake of my mental health that it wasn't something I continue to participate in. Thank you for entering - you're all rockstars and I wish that the competition had turned out differently.
ThatGFFAN
@ontheupsidedown I entered one of my fanfics into the Gravity Falls Wattys in 2018 and it was disqualified pretty early on. While I cannot speak for others and how they felt or about the event overall, the disqualification did help me personally become a better writer, as the reasonings behind my fic's disqualification were that it had some pretty bad grammar and layout errors which I went on to improve on (though from how you put it, I do question if bias played a factor in it too). So, while the Gravity Falls Wattys may not have been perfect and as you described it, seemed to be done with bias...indicative of how the GF fandom then was, it did for me at least help improve my writing abilities and let me go on to write better stories. So, if nothing else, I have to thank you for that. I became a better writer cause of this mess of a competition that no one but a few fans remember, lmao.
ontheupsidedown
I also recommend removing your sticker if you were one of the winners. It's unfortunately really not the flex you think it is :/
