OH GOSH THE LAST TIME I UPDATED WAS HOW LONG AGO

Around 3 months ago now. I'm extremely sorry for my lack of time-management and discipline. It's been so long since I've thought about this, and now that I have, I'm determined to make it up to you in length and quality and crack.

Somehow. If I can.

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own DGM.

It's finally Sunday, the end of that long, torturous week, and the stories are submitted via email to the fabulous duo to tabulate the scores.

Road and Lenalee are sprawled on the floor of Lenalee's room, staring at her Macbook's screen with amusement. Saturday was the deadline, and unfortunately for them, no one was late - that meant no one was disqualified this round, aww! Kanda's was the first to be sent in, followed by Lavi's, followed by Tyki's, all at borderline deadline time, with Tyki's coming in at 23:59:58.

"Didn't Tyki pay a good sum for beta-reading?" Lenalee asks, as they wait for the Word files to download into her computer. "Why d'you think he sent in his story last?"

Road smirks. "I know he doesn't show it, but he's pretty perfectionist, as far as I can tell, and he was probably double checking it for hours before sending it in," she rolls over to her right and gazes up at the ceiling. "Wonder who's going to win. You betting on anyone?"

"I really don't know - Lavi paid the most, so I did manage to give him a pretty good plot and other phrases and whatnot, but Kanda might surprisingly overtake both of them with all that bottled energy from meditating WAY too much."

The documents flash up on the screen one by one, and their attention is once again pulled back to the screen, Road's chin resting on her palms, Lenalee's eyes glinting at the submissions.

"So we have Kanda's, who sent in his first."

"Mmmm," Road laughs and kicks her legs up in the air behind her. "Can't wait."

FLASHBACK

"So I guess I should read this book of trash that I paid $60 for," Kanda muttered to himself as the weird pumpkin umbrella fled.

He flipped to the first page and began reading.

1) YOUR TITLE AND SUMMARY

The importance of them are that these give the first impression to the reader.

The title would being significant and relevant to the story in some way. The title will describe also the nature of the piece, like "The Big Bad Wolf" clearly stating a childish book or something by it's format alone. Also, titles may be a small part from the story itself, like "To Kill A Mockingbird", or it might also be a seemingly insignificant item in the story. It can also be the context itself, like "The Lord Of The Rings" It's simply up to you to decide a title that is striking and fitting to the story.

The summary is not the story in a nutshell, because then the ending will be given away. The summary describes the problem, or the main character, or anything to give the reader a first understanding of what the story might be about. The summary should make the reader want to read more and actually open the book to get to the inside. Take pride in your summary, and don't do some half-assed job on it because a lot of people DO judge a book by it's cover. What's the context? Where's the problem? While you write your description, also make sure that you don't let on too much to your audience.

2) YOUR PLOT

It's vital to have a good plot. Good plots mean plots that are not cliched and overused, they mean a build up of events to the climax where it's really THE climax. Coming up with plots are up to you, but it's impossible to write a story without a plot. Just saying. Come up with your beginning, climax and ending before you get started on it.

3) EVENTS CENTERED AROUND YOUR PLOT

It's impossible to write something good if all there is is a beginning middle and end. What causes this to happen so that this happens so that this happens so that the climax is reached? You need to make steps to the top. These events are mostly problems that arise and solutions that arrive. Other than problem-causing events that happen, there are also events which are of not much relevance to the plot, but help inform the reader of the mood, environment, or character better. All these events are important. Also, when you've reached your climax, make sure you don't end your story right there, but do write the resolution and how it all ends.

Kanda flips to the next page, and is greeted with a huge

WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO READ THE REST OF THE BOOK BECAUSE YOU ONLY BOUGHT THE $60 COPY.

:P

Immediately enraged, especially by the completely unnecessary and uncalled for emoticon that DARES to stick out it's disgusting and filthy tongue at Kanda, he unsheathes Mugen and prepares to slice the book into pieces before he realises...

Damn. He paid $60 for that. For that worthless piece of shit.

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a worthless piece of shit - before he read that, he had no idea how on earth to write a fanfiction, and that not-so worthless piece of shit gave him an idea on what he was supposed to write. Something about a title and a summary and then a series of events from beginning to end with some sort of high point that the story should be centered on.

Still slightly annoyed, he growled at the book, tossed his sword on the bed, and opened both his laptop (to write the story itself) and his notebook (to scribble ideas and doodle if need be), and activated the mode he never knew he had:

FAN-FICTION WRITING MODE.

Sweets In My Locker

by Kanda Yuu

SUMAMRY: Allen keeps finding sweets in his locker.

"It is the fourth day that someone has mysteriously put sweets in my locker." Allen Walker sighed kawaiily while sparkles started surrounding him, as he took the sweets out from his locker in the hallway. He was honoured that someone would care to give him sweets everyday. However, the person who was giving him the sweets pretty much had no hope. The moyashi had his eyes set on the school senior, Kanda Yuu, who had long silky hair and was the most sugoi in school, and it was most likely not Kanda Yuu who was going so low to give a commoner like him sweets. He headed up to class, not seeing the forementioned senior who was peeking from the dustbin in the corner to see how his moyashi, the love of his life, had reacted. Unfortunately, the dustbin had been too enclosed for the raven-haired bishounen to hear what Allen was saying.

The next day, the moyashi and his best friend, Lenalee, were going to the lockers. "I wonder who your secret admirer is, Allen!" Lenalee squealed, as they moved down the corridor to get their things for the next class. The moyashi stopped in his tracks as they were nearing their lockers as he noticed Kanda walk to his locker and drop something in, before walking off coolly like a boss. Was Kanda his secret admirer? Lenalee saw that as well, and got the same idea. "Maybe it is your crush, Kanda Yuu, who's giving you the sweets!" She squealed again. Inside, moyashi's kokoro was going doki doki. Maybe it really was him! When he opened his locker, the sweets fell out. The sweets were definitely not there the last time the moyashi had checked the locker, which was barely two hours ago, before his first class. It was almost hard to believe, but the truth was there in plain sight. Was he going to believe his eyes? Obviously he had to.

The next day, the moyashi got to his locker early, before Kanda came, in order to confront the senior. He really wanted to know if it was Kanda. He also did not want to get his hopes up in case they would be crushed. Soon, he spotted a tall, long-haired teenager walking down the hallway like a boss, and started swooning, before realising that he was in plain sight. The moment Kanda saw moyashi, they both widened their eyes. "Is it you who is giving me the sweets?" Moyashi nervously asked. Moyashi looked at Kanda's hand, which was holding the sweets tightly, and realised that it indeed was Kanda who was his secret admirer! Kanda found that very moe of moyashi. Solemnly, he said "Moyashi-chan, you make my kokoro go doki doki." Kanda immediately slammed moyashi against the lockers and gave him a deep kiss which involved a lot of tongue work. The moyashi's lips were so soft like feathers. After the kiss, they stared at each other, and moyashi gave Kanda a big hug. They became boyfriends and loved each other for the rest of their lives.

THE END.

"I think Kanda really outdid himself."

"Agreed. I never expected that he could write so descriptively!"

"I like how he portrayed himself confessing himself to Allen. The whole repetition of the 'kokoro going doki doki'."

"The match between their feelings!"

"And the ending was so heartfelt. I think it really gripped the readers' attentions."

"Yep. I think that fanfic was a big success. Lavi's?"

"Lavi's."

FLASHBACK

Lenalee had spent around 3 hours with Lavi, as they brainstormed together about the plot and side events and other technical stuff. Even though she was being extremely helpful and stuff, he couldn't help but keep reminding himself that he was paying a bomb for this. But it was kinda worth it.

They had written a line before Lenalee had to go... wherever she had to go, and so he was left on his own.

"At least I did get enough help to continue the story by myself," he rubbed his head, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He had the whole idea grasped, and he knew where the plot was going, but he just didn't know HOW to write it.

On the plus side, his English was good, and all the backstage stuff had already been done with Lenalee.

On the down side, he just couldn't bring himself to write. Anything.

The story wouldn't be too long at all, instead really kinda short, and actually void of much conflicts. Not even much romance. Something a little easier and stuff. Lavi had no idea why, but he really couldn't bring himself to write a lot of romance just yet. An AU where Lavi was working in a bookstore and Allen was the boy who went there everyday after school. Angst? Lenalee had asked him when Lavi suggested that idea. He decided to see how it'd go.

Two possible endings: 1) happy or 2) sad.

"Oh, and remember," Lenalee had said as she was getting ready to go, "Don't worry so much about how it'll turn out yet. Just start writing. And if it's suckish at the end, write the whole thing again. Trial and error, yeah?"

With a sigh, he picked one of the endings, and started doing just that.

So It Goes On

by Lavi

SUMMARY: Lavi is the one who works at the bookstore, and Allen is the one who loves reading.

Lavi looks up from the counter as the door closes, and his eyes light up when he sees Allen step in.

"Hey," he casually says as the kid walks over. "School ended early today?"

"You could say that," Allen cheerfully replies, a grin dancing across his face. "And meanwhile, you're still hanging around, waiting for your exam results to be released. Which college were you planning on entering, by the way?"

The cashier sighs. "Nothing too fancy. I'm not very sure yet... I don't think I'm smart enough for any of the other prestigious schools."

"Yeah right! Aren't you, like, the smartest guy from your school or something?"

Lavi winks at the shorter boy. "Maybe."

They laugh together, and someone in the store irritably goes "shh!", so they shut up and Allen goes to take a look at the books on the racks, while Lavi gets back to his usual business.

About three hours later, Allen emerges from his own corner, and makes his way to the counter.

"Going home?"

"Yep," Allen replies. Before he goes out the door, he suddenly remembers something, and gets something out from his pocket.

"By the way, Lavi, do you like sweets?"

"Haha, yeah, why?"

At this, the albino hands the candy in his hand over. "Got this in school. Friend was giving them out. And I'm kinda allergic to this sort of thing."

"Allergic? You, the guy who eats everything?"

"Shut up!" Allen sticks out his tongue at Lavi. "Gotta run. Bye!"

"Later!"

The redhead had been harbouring a crush on Allen for a while now. Lavi was about 3 years older than Allen. And despite the slight age gap, Lavi had been feeling some sort of attraction to Allen over the time they had known each other.

When he got home, he went straight to his bedroom, carefully unwrapped the sweet, and popped it in his mouth.

And he couldn't help but think even more about the other guy.

That piece of candy was pretty sweet.

The following day, Allen pushed open the door to the bookstore, this time with a perky looking girl behind him.

Lavi instantly knew that was bad luck.

Swallowing the feeling of impending doom in his throat, he pasted a smile on his face as they came up to him. "Hey, Allen, reeled in some fish today?"

The other male blushed. "Lavi, this is Saki," he introduced, as the mentioned girl beamed at him and waved.

"Girlfriend?"

"..."

"I knew it," he breezily answered his own question, pretending to be preoccupied in something else like doodling pokemon all over receipts. "Don't have to be so shy. No kissing, no having sex, and have a good time here~!"

Thank goodness they didn't hear the sarcasm in his voice, as they both turned red and as Allen pulled Saki towards the bookshelves. That girl- she didn't know how lucky she was.

He sat there for the rest of the day, wondering what might have happened if.

If.

There is a pause.

"..."

"..."

And then they start LOLing, which grows into ROFLing, which grows into LMAOing, which grows into ROFLMAOing, which grows into LSHTRSAing (laughing so hard that rainbows start appearifying) and eventually they stop laughing when the rainbow fairy comes to take away the rainbows because she has gotten bored of watching them laugh.

They finish reading the story at 12.52am.

They finish laughing at 2am.

Lenalee gets back to her senses first, being the younger one and all that. "Roaaaad! All that time wasted! We're supposed to be done with marking all these at 3!"

"Really? What a pity."

"Any comments on that fine piece of comedy?"

"You know, Lenalee, something tells me that what Lavi wrote wasn't meant to be funny..."

"Nah, doubt it. I mean, if it was actually meant to be serious, it really must have failed as a fanfic."

"But that was the most priceless piece of humor fanfic I've ever read!"

"I think I've read more hilarious writings, but the fact that Lavi wrote it made it all the more amazing."

"You have a point. Gosh, I really have a good feeling that Lavi's going to win."

"Let's not make any hasty decisions, shall we?"

"Sureeeee. Let's go read Tyki-pon's now~!"

FLASHBACK

It was around his 7th time proofreading and editing the story - Tyki was determined to get his story to be the ultimate best. I mean, he already spent so much money on getting Road (mumblegrumble) to help him out. And she did, quite a good amount, but she'd only spent an hour with him before getting up and disappearing through her door. Ugh.

He was rather comforted when he realised that there wasn't much of a problem after the story structure was set, because he did have good grammar and a formidable vocabulary, but

he realised that he was competing against Lavi, the smartest of the smartest.

"ohshitohshitohshit" he mumbled to himself as he rummaged around for his laptop, which he promptly found because it was on the table in front of him.

7 more hours to the deadline. 7 times to proofread. Once an hour.

Tyki was pretty sure that with his perfectionism and stuff, he'd at least be up to Lavi's rank or something. I mean, Kanda was so silent and stuff, and surely he can't have paid so much for the beta-reading services because he didn't seem like the sort to care. No, his main rival was Lavi now.

The first time he went through the story, he picked out all the grammar and punctuation mistakes, did a little more of paragraphing and inserting complex words.

The second time he went through the story, he inserted witty lines.

The third time he went through the story, he corrected some tenses and described a lot of the actions more elaborately.

The fourth time he went through the story, he added in more vocabulary.

The fifth time he went through the story, he added more small events into the story.

The sixth time he went through the story, he did another grammer/punctuation check.

And the seventh time he went through the story, he read it again and said it was good.

Explanatory Paradox

by Tyki Mikk

Summary: Self-explanatory.

(A/N: for an idea of what Tyki wrote, go here: http:/yvsevolod-26 . narod . ru/yvseva/PERRICONE1001 . pdf just without the spaces.)

The two judges look at each other blankly.

"I don't read Russian. Do you read Russian?"

"I thought that was Czech?"

"Or maybe Ukrainian."

"Funny how the words looked like it was written in English, though."

"Let's put it through Google Translate."

They do, and when they copy the text and paste it in, they realise that it is indeed written in English. So they try reading it again.

It fails.

Lenalee looks over at the time on the screen. 2.27am. They get down to business.

"Marking shouldn't take a long time. Let's evaluate the three different factors."

1) LANGUAGE

2) CONTENT

3) RELEVANCE TO TOPIC

KANDA

LANGUAGE: 8/10

side note from judges: Phrasing of words a bit awkward at times, but points for use of otaku terms.

CONTENT: 9/10

side note from judges: Plot was short and sweet. Not much climax, but you managed to pull it off in the end.

RELEVANCE TO TOPIC: 10/10

side note from judges: Amazing, straight-forward use of candy, and romance was very much evident.

TOTAL: 27/30

LAVI

LANGUAGE: 9/10

side note from judges: Simple but smooth use of language.

CONTENT: 10/10

side note from judges: Humour was extremely humorous. Interesting AU.

RELEVANCE TO TOPIC: 8/10

side note from judges: Candy seemed slightly unnecessary in this fic. It's supposed to be ABOUT candy rather than CONTAINING candy. But oh what the hey we'll give you 8/10 because it's still okay.

TOTAL: 27/30

TYKI

LANGUAGE: 3/10

side note from judges: You were trying too hard to act smart. Story was hardly readable.

CONTENT: 1/10

side note from judges: Was it even a story?

RELEVANCE TO TOPIC: 0/10

side note from judges: After a whole lot of times of rereading, we finally got the gist of your story. It was about Rocket Science. In other words, we didn't get it.

TOTAL: 4/30

OVERALL NOTE FROM JUDGES:

Since there was a tie between Kanda and Lavi, you both will have to share prizes, which means:

1) The empty room next to Allen's will either have both of you living in together, or someone gets 4 days living in it and the other gets 3 days living in it.

2) The free beta-reading service will go like this: Road will be assisting both of you at the same time, like in a school. Thus, you both will learn the same things, but she will be free for consultation if you wish to have her advice on your half-completed work.

3) Yaoi pick-up lines will go in first-come-first-serve format. We will meet you some time soon together, and we will give you the pick-up lines, and it will then be a matter of who uses them first.

Lenalee then emails the above section of text to each of the contestants, snaps shut the cover of the laptop, and lays back on the floor, stretching her arms up above her.

"Finally we're done with this shit." Road says, yawning. "Say, can I crash in your bedroom? I don't want to have to face the wrath of Tyki."

Lenalee tilts her head. "Sure, but isn't Tyki always cool in pretty much every situation?"

"His aura. Even after so long living with him it creeps me out," she replies, shuddering. "Gives me the heebie-jeebies."

The taller girl pauses, smiles, and lazily she drags herself to the bed. "We have 21 hours before the next week of crazy fanfictioning begins. Better make the best of it."

"Trudat. I'm out. Peace."

With that, they both fall into a deep, deep, sleep, while the three dudes are up, huddled in their own rooms in their own pillow forts, waiting for the email to arrive,

and it does.

Hope you liked that last chapter! :D

I'm sorry that I couldn't exactly write out Tyki's part, but I just had no idea how to write and pull off that sort of thing, so I decided Google Scholar would aid me the best in a reference for you guys.

Kanda and Lavi still have some issue over the whole prize-sharing thing, so review or PM me who you want to get priority over prizes and I'll see which pairing got the most votes and next chapter you'll see a little more of that pairing ;) (ohgosh that was a long sentence)

Also, sorry about any OOCness. Haven't read DGM in some time. Which reminds me, latest chapter is out. (was out some time ago but w/e)

I'm out too.