Everything means everything. Everything belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, Fox, WB, UPN and a scourge of lawyers. I fear them well.
This is a game based on the NCAA men's basketball tournament, only using characters from the shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and having fans vote the outcomes. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's been done before in many different formats. The Road To The Apocalypse is the direct descendent of The Road To Sunnydale that was conducted last summer. TR2S was suppose to be a tournament of the supporting characters of BtVS, which proved to be hopelessly top heavy. But I still had a lot of fun putting it on, so I'm back with the hopefully improved Apocalypse.
If you're wondering what criteria you are suppose to use when voting, I'm leaving that totally up to the voter. I mean, how would you regulate it? Please vote once and only once per matchup. And don't recruit those who have no interest in Buffy to help seal an election. I've created this primarily for the Buffy/Angel fans who are regulars of ATPOBTVS and while it is structured primarily for their enjoyment, I hope that all Buffy and Angel fans who find it, can enjoy it. By the way, thanks to Masquerade and her indulgence of my wacky internet adventure on her posting board. I don't kiss up often (or well), but you rock girl!
I want all the comments, no holds barred, all the time (funny helps). The only way you will be censored by me, is if I have too many comments (which hasn't been very close to happening), and (not or) yours are too tame. No one is untouchable, except maybe your fellow comment makers. They should feel free to say what they want without someone attacking them. But even then, I'd like to think that they would welcome the fighting words. Last year I was kind of picky about character bashing, but I'm beyond that now. This is an antagonistic forum, and I'm finally embracing it.
I do require a name with the comment. If no name is attributed to a comment, it will not be included in the Results. English is the preferred language of the comment area, but the occasional French, Spanish, Canadian, etc. phrase will be happily accepted. What will never be accepted is netspeak. This unintelligible crap will be kicked to the curb every time. I'm as dumb as anyone, but I consider netspeak to be the toejam of the internet.
I've written a couple versions on how the seedings came about, but they always end up sounding apologetic. So I'm trying to lay it out here. I tried to be as fair as possible with seedings. Hopefully no one is more than a seed above or below where they should be, (regardless of whatever result may happen.) I should add that the 15 and 16 seeds of each bracket are there because they won a playin vote. I know some seeds won't fit into whatever bracket they were put into, but I tried to keep them in the class of their seed more than where they are seeded. Example: Wesley and Giles. Neither really belongs in their bracket, but both deserve the seed they got.
However, the seedings don't matter very much. Because it is you, the voter, who will ultimately decide who moves on and who gets buried in the character graveyard. My advice: flip coins.
One of the things that I learned last year was that if I set myself up to be the sole decider of ties, I'm gonna piss some people off. So I'm sharing the blame this year with a rotating group of volunteers who will serve on a tiebreaker council of three. They will email me who they vote for, when they vote. If there is a tie, then the winner of the Council votes will win the match. I am still taking volunteers, but I'd rather take them on Masq's posting board, whenever I post a matchup.
Check out the links in the seed number next to the character name in the bracket. There is a little extra background info and photos for that combatant. If you don't like your favorite character(s); for god's sake, email me your replacement text and/or photos and I will replace it and give you due credit. I've been mostly throwing all this together and thinking, "what the hell? I need to have this going before the end of June." So if I don't have the feel for the character that you obviously do, for the love of Pete, replace me!
I'm looking at four matches a week, which would make the First Round last 8 weeks. Five matches a week last year burned me out. It also gives me a little flexibility for scheduling. It'll probably run Monday and Tuesday, then two days out of Wednesday through Friday. I'm also looking at taking a week off, I'm not sure when, but sometime during the summer. More on this will be posted on the ATPOBTVS posting board. Round 2 will last 4 weeks, and the regional semifinals will last 2 weeks. This isn't a syllabus.
I'm having trouble keeping track of everywhere I've found screen caps, so I'm just going to try a blanket statement of credit. Screen caps from the first two seasons of Buffy are probably from Screen Captures. Seasons 3 through 5 screen caps are probably from Buffyguide. And seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy are most likely from Just Imagine. And I still have a few from across the board that I find from ATPOBTVS. Angel is even harder for me to keep track of. I've found probably over a third of them from a site called Totally David Boreanaz UK, and some of them don't even have DB in them (sarcasm alert). Otherwise they come from City of Angels.
Email me: road2apocalypse@yahoo.com