🖤 pending the scoreboard 🖤

Thanks Harry and Uhsting, honoured to have our country name in that Sovarasma scrawl.

Thanks so much for your support! I didn't see this win coming at all. I was hoping for a top 15 at best, and as the results kept going and I still wasn't announced, my heart kept pounding harder and faster!

I think, as others have said, the story behind the song is definitely grim, and so the lyrics make it all so provocative, while at the same time I love how that's juxtaposed with the upbeat, sort of whimsy sound and anthemic refrain. I also love her voice, esthetics and personality in that stunning music video. It's very powerful in more way than one, so I'm really happy about this win.

If I've done the math right, I've been winning every 7 years since I first won🤩

so who was the Sovarasma 18 for? I may have lost the ability to read by looking at that, iconic as it is.

edit: nevermind, just found the spoiler button in the middle!

As I said in my votes, my Top 3 spent basically the whole of yesterday shuffling around. 'Johnny Kitagawa' is very much lodged in my brain... I think it benefitted from having pretty heavy rock elements (which are always a good way to scratch my brain), but also being very pop at the same time!

Excellent song @Freeze , and thank you for the discovery 💚

21 minutes ago, pavi said:

I must say that despite being dangled a carrot in front of my face the whole way through and then missing the top 10 entirely, the hosting has been IMPECCABLE. Can we make Nelly host everything moving forward?

Sorry for all the cheeky manipulations! I had fun putting the order together to suppress the Greenfroze surge, and that heinous ballot 😮 was the perfect stopping point. Unfortunately you were one of my victims 🖤

Not @jimwatts remembering my tactics from the past

Oh great winner there! And that's now the second recycled Dobago artist to win :') (mind you this is a better song than our entry was) coincidentally with the first being via Nelionoir themselves so looking forward to... let's say Sassy 009 winning for someone in a Greenfroze hosted contest one day.

I don't know what else to say. I love my song and I'm really happy!

This contest has been amazing as well in general, as I've made some incredible discoveries this time. I often do, which is why I keep participating. You guys obviously have such great taste🥰

Perfectly hosted as well. So much fun!

Thanks muchly to Noche, Liam, Tim, Lex (just about) and Juranamo for the remaining votes for manifest <3

If I find the energy to do so I might run a bit of basic spreadsheet analysis on people's point splits between semi 1 and 2 songs this month as perhaps the closest we can get to a simple proxy for pop bloc vs. alt bloc x (as I already calculated from my own votes I was a bang on centrist with 60 points to each semi plus 4 to the AQ, although I did vote for 8 semi 2 songs vs. 6 semi 1, semi 1 was just bolstered by having all of my 2nd-4th places).

Anyway. Scoreboard checking now. Back in a bit x

ty eledan for the silver, and congrats freeze on the win!! a lot of my faves in the top 10 so can't complain about the results all in all.

im pretty happy with #23, esp after the DNQ and then the bottom 10/wooden spoon predix! going into the final I thought we might have hit the ceiling w/ support considering it was such an alt-heavy semi, so I did do a tad better than I'd hoped. like I said before, I became obsessed with this song during the last contest (in that sense this contest has been going on for me for a month and a half now—very emotionally exhausting considering how invested I was when I confirmed it), and I really was not thinking about how well it would do*, I just wanted as many people to hear it as possible, so getting to the final might've been my end goal all in all x I just think it's such a fine example of its genre and what that genre can be. If you voted for it, I hope you heard what I heard in it <3

*we just didn't want the wooden spoon! I literally would've never forgiven any of you if we got it

Edited 14 hours ago14 hr by dhwe

I'm going to bed now, but if I'm still the winner after the double check, I'm going to need a moment to think about how I'll be hosting and whether I might need some help. I declined hosting duties last time, so it's been way past ten years since I last hosted.

I'm really nervous about it.

Anyways, thanks everyone for the kinds words and good night :)

Thanks Harry and Lex for my remaining points. Turned out to be quite a dry spell in those last 12 votes, as my margin over 11th place was cut from 33 points to 6. Still that's 3 top 10s in a year for the first time, so I go home happy. Now hoping to have an 80% Q rate from 32/40 contests at the end of the year!

I feel for Wardy getting 9 points more than the song in 22nd and still not qualifying, and Lindsey for only just qualifying then getting a rough time in the final, but I'm glad I could help Lookylion through, and my 10 points to Cor Lupus look like they were useful too!

Thank you blacksquare for hosting such a fun edition with all the drama as well as inspiring everyone's artwork I look forward to what Greenfroze has in store next time!

Oh yes and thank you Nelly for the incredible hosting job, lots of fun and the good kind of chaos x

57 minutes ago, blacksquare said:

semi final spreadsheets

Hey Mr. Square, how do we check who gave points in the semis? I'd like to know my seven fans this month.

9 minutes ago, awardinary said:

Hey Mr. Square, how do we check who gave points in the semis? I'd like to know my seven fans this month.

Everything should be there on the SF1 sheet, votes on the right hand side

That one point I gave to Land of DW made a dramatic difference.

(I'm very sorry, Aeroche. xo)

HOLY MOLY

Well done Greenfroze!!!

Macromia, you better see this!!!

The Persephonian auditors have completed their scurry to verify the final spreadsheet x

No biggies - @Freeze won't be waking up to a nasty reversal x - but the ties are all upside down so a few minor positional differences (all the points totals are correct). Will leave Nelly to amend the final scoreboard but these are the correct tiebreaks:

17th East Rukahavian (25 votes)

18th Sovarasma (24 votes) - no change to the position here, the other two have swapped around

19th Séyetana (21 votes)

24th Mothertopia (21 votes)

25th Lotunia (15 votes)

33rd Thelonia (19 votes)

34th Daehun (17 votes)

So turns out Sarah Kinsley did finish higher than 19th after all! (and sorry to the K-Pop songs and I oop xox).

Congrats @Freeze on such an outstanding win ...I absolutely loved your entry, and it was sitting right outside my votes <3.

@blacksquare you diva, you did a fabulous job hosting! From the drawings to all the little details, you really brought the whole community together, so please come back and host again soon.

Despite all the odds pointing towards Vendetta being a Top 10 smash, I am genuinely happy with its #13 finish. It's one of my absolute favourite entries of the year, so a huge thank you to all 25 of you who gave it your votes <3.

Also, happy to see my 18 this month, Persephonia, smashing it once again with manifest <3.

Looking forward to the next edition!!!

I see I actually qualified pretty comfortably after all despite the unfavourable looking semi draw, there were a few more fans in my semi than I realised - 10 voters who all gave it at least 5 points, nice. (Retained points in the final from 9 of the 10, dropped to 0 in the final from Ajanaeda but conversely went from 0 in the semi to 6 in the final from The Spodic Empire). Eek that it was actually the other 'Manifest' that was in substantially more trouble with Lookylion only qualifying by 1 point

Greenfroze going from projected 17th to the win - that's now two of the top 10 biggest such rises ever within just the last 3 contests ('Caught In A Jam' went from 20th to 1st)! 300SkullsAndCounting nestling in just ahead of Sarah Kinsley in the semi 2 scoreboard is beautifully unhinged also x

My run this year now reading DNQ-17-11-19-DNQ-DNQ-DNQ-02-12 - still a fairly rough year overall but it's nice to once again have more top 20 hits than DNQs for the year, here's hoping I can make it a 60/40 split next month x (not got anything lined up for 190 yet so remains to be seen if Popsephonia will continue into a third contest in a row).

Thanks to @blacksquare for the hosting again, has been a very fun and chaotic contest <3 I really hope you enjoyed the hosting more yourself than you did last time, another win from you could always be only a month away so you better get used to it etc. xo

@Freeze ofc the mod team will be on hand to assist you with anything if you do want to have another go at hosting - the contest you hosted before is one of the earliest ones that I have particular memories of (I had been entering for a couple of years before it but not really paying that much mind to it x) and I think I remember it being quite above and beyond for its time! Coming up to 15 years ago now, whew.

I'd probably better go to bed now lol but I will hopefully belatedly get up the qualification streak update for this contest (in the semi results thread) as well as the penultimate YTD update of the year (in here) in the next few days x