11-17-2023, 05:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-28-2023, 07:04 PM by xenosthelegend. Edited 1 time in total.)
The S44 Gemini Media Awards
Recognizing Merit in the League
Recognizing Merit in the League
Welcome to the S44 Gemini Media Awards! My name is Baron1898, and I'm here to present some recognition for the best works of media created during the past season.
It is crazy to me that this is the sixth installment of this awards show. My first stab at the concept only made it to two! Knowing that there are some crazy people out there who have gone so far as to put their Gemini wins into their signatures warms my heart for more reasons than pure ego validation; hopefully, this has grown and will continue to grow into a league institution, and that can only be a good thing for the health of the media scene. Much more important to that end, though, are all of the users this year who turned in some really spectacular content for everyone in the community to enjoy. There would be no media awards without media.
Sorry for the delay; it turns out that publishing the day after the Ultimus might be an unsustainable goal. In any case, my entirely subjective, one-woman effort is sponsored by Head Office. They have graciously agreed, and forgotten to tell me to stop, to pay every winner of a Gemini a cool $3 million in sim bucks. Indeed, if you sweep all four awards every year and refrain from spending a single cent, it would only take you until around Season 160 to become the league's richest user! There's a goal you can set your mind to.
Here are the rules to the competition.
- Any piece of written media published during Season 44 is eligible for an award. This runs from the end of Ultimus 43 to the end of Ultimus 44, or from September 15 to November 10. While pressers technically count, the nature of a presser means it would have to be truly exceptional to even register. Graphics and podcasts do not qualify; I know nothing about the former and do not have enough time for the latter.
- There are four award categories: Best Article (Limited), Best Article (Series), Best Author, and Best New Author. Best Article (Limited) and Best Author have ten nominees, while Best Article (Series) and Best New Author have five.
- An article can only be considered for one of the two relevant categories. Any article published as part of an ongoing series, regardless of whether that series was started in Season 44, is only eligible for the latter category. The exception is any article intended to start a series that so far is the only entry.
- Articles published by groups (for example, the SFWG) are not eligible for awards. Articles that are just lists of statistics or players with no added contribution by the author are also ineligible. Finally, my own articles are ineligible for the obvious conflict of interest.
- Any author can qualify for Best Author. Quality as well as quantity of work is heavily rewarded. Only authors who joined the league in the last three draft classes (for this year, the S44, S45, and S46 classes) and who have never won Best Author or Best New Author before are eligible for Best New Author.
- Remember that this is all one dame's opinion. Every piece of media has creative value and brings something new to the table.
Best Article (Limited)
This category honors the media pieces from the past year that have risen above the competition to bring creative and professional content to the league at large.
And the nominees are…
@37thchamber, "[S43] Did the right Offensive Linemen get Pro Bowl nods?"
- Detailed analysis of sim performance, in this sim, for the offensive line to boot, is a tall order. 37th takes his best crack at it, though, and what comes out of his effort is a wonderfully inspired examination of the Pro Bowl selections and how penalties and net offensive yards might better qualify the deserving selections if taken into account. Even with any methodological issues and an ultimate affirmation of the status quo, the article is a snappy, concise read and does a great job explaining 37th's chosen statistics.
- If I ever needed more justification for blindly following Tuba's advice every fantasy draft, I could point to this article for proof. CROney thoroughly takes foolish fantasy rankers to task, including himself, detailing how well each of them performed against the actual results for every position. His work includes a healthy number of tables, but instead of some ranking formula he focused more on a nuanced, subjective placement and explained why certain players were more surprising than others.
- Did you know that Colorado once won an Ultimus? Drizzy uses this as the jumping off point for chronicling the next few seasons after, a history both of heartbreak and of slow decline from the top of the mountain. His work is commendable. This is a great historical summary, turning what could have been a rote summary of statistics and team record into an engaging and tragic narrative of decline and missed potential.
- This is a showcase of supreme effort. Taking the past three classes of draft prospects together, lemonoppy endeavors to place the most productive within a hypothetical NFL draft using comparisons of their statistical output, combine results, and the context of the actual NFL. The amount of work and polish that clearly went into this article, from the tables to the player analyses, results in top-notch craftsmanship.
- Scorigami is old hat, but scorigami for the DSFL is a whole new ballgame. Here is such an impressive showing from last year's Best New Author, going far beyond just making a scorigami chart into a well-researched, visually interesting exploration of team records, player wins, and how different franchises have fared in such games across their history. Lock180's writing pairs perfectly with their analysis and displays some serious range.
- Speaking of that range, here is a piece that melds quite a lot of research with an entirely humorous slant. The key to immortalizing yourself in the Hall, lock180 argues, comes less from frivolous things like stats and more from factors like birthplace, jersey number, and the mysteries of numerology. It's dumb, it's funny, and it's the result of some hefty analysis of the league's Hall of Fame denizens and why their compatibility score determined their success from the moment they joined the league.
- One of the topics up for discussion within this year's league zeitgeist was team scheduling, a process which very few currently can grasp. To the rescue comes Michiganonymous, who pitches two systems for simple yet competitive scheduling and explains this potentially confusing set-up in a manner easy for anyone to understand. They have compelling command both of the topic and of the art of visualization through tables and clear formatting.
- It's actually sort of funny that the SFWG stopped publishing consensus fantasy rankings the same season I started making Geminis, so my disclaimer in the rules makes less and less sense with every awards show.
Anyways, the person who actually published those articles, Pvtpenne, turned out a real banger here. Tables galore tell the story of how well DSFL and ISFL teams do at producing and selecting premium first-round talent, respectively, paired perfectly with original statistical findings and a writing style that communicates information to the reader in an honest, descriptive, and occasionally amusing voice.
- This is a rock-solid piece. Contrary to soevil's own protestations, the formatting of the article functions well enough for the draft retrospective content to shine. It adds a great personal perspective to the analysis and carries across the author's casual charm, which makes learning about each player's success or lack thereof an interesting affair. When they say they are terrible at writing media, I do not believe them.
- If I had a nickel for every article published during 2.5x media week discussing proposals to change the league salary cap system, one of them would have wiz's face on it. Wiz has always been a wiz of presentation, and that remains wonderful here, not to mention his well-thought out discussions about a TPE cap and new potential systems that are laid out in intuitive and comprehensible language.
@lemonoppy!
Yes, the first reply called it. In the face of some serious competition from the other nominees – two in particular – lemonoppy's incredible work here took the cake. His creativity and voice shine through every paragraph, and with the level of dedication to the conceit and format on display here he is well worthy of taking home his second Gemini award.
Best Article (Series)
This category recognizes the media that has been published as part of an ongoing series of articles. United in theme or in branding, these media collections can tell stories and capture an audience through the use of sequenced publishing.
And the nominees are…
@37thchamber, "Finding Leilani"
- Perhaps my biggest character arc across reading every media piece for six seasons has been a growing appreciation for long-form narrative. This series in particular reads like a short story; 37th has a knack for engaging prose here, and his player's journey across the titular free agency experience weaves together seamlessly into a double narrative of personal connections, underworld dealings, and a climactic twist I will not spoil that is made doubly effective by the creative usage of perspective shift.
- Holy shit. Read this if you haven't already; if you have, go read it again.
- Last year's breakout media star put forth this wonderful series on the intriguing, and unique, calculation of team dominance. The use of this metric to service a power rankings series for both leagues, not to mention the excellent formatting and addition of other factors of interest, is supremely admirable. The final article, which adds some wonderful tables overlooking the whole season, unfortunately gave too much hope to the Austin Copperheads that their sim demons had been expelled.
- Another narrative series that technically started last season, this gripping drama is yet another example of the strange mythology and humor that seems to pervade the S44 draft class. In vivid contrast to 37th's series, this first-person account reads like a noir detective story, mixing in plenty of suspicious characters from the ISFL to great effect and making the total experience charming even for readers not in on the joke.
- More than just a recap of Sarasota's games, this two-part series elaborates on why the team is the league's most dramatic with a sprinkle of homer flair and a dash of math. Particularly noteworthy is the second of the two, which pulls out the calculator to show how the Sailfish spent the first half of the season fighting for their lives compared to other squads and does it all with an earnest sense of levity.
@aeonsjenni!
This article, quite honestly, is one of the best pieces of media I have ever read on this website. The statistical analysis, the webs, the graphs, the explanations, the voice, the humor, the formatting – it all combines to make a simply incredible concoction, one which elevates the subject matter far beyond what I could've imagined the topic would spawn a year ago. Jenni easily takes the Gemini here.
Best Author
This category honors authors whose work in the past year has contributed significantly to the media scene. These individuals have proven to consistently provide quality content for the press and include some of the most inspired and dedicated members of the community.
And the nominees are…
@37thchamber
- 37th's two contributions this year both qualified as nominees for the article categories. One of the many impressive aspects of both is his range as an author; his statistical endeavors studying offensive line performance are a completely different ballpark from writing a narrative fictional player account, and yet both shine all the same. Perhaps this versatility and polish is to be expected from the Father of the League Wiki whenever he deigns to dabble in the media scene.
- AW13 similarly had quite the eclectic output. Of particular note in his portfolio was the series finale to last season's Best Article (Series) on team defenses, a worthy conclusion that continues his excellent wielding of research and formatting, and a thought experiment on what DSFL fantasy football would look like, which just missed the cut for awards nomination and which tied its premise together admirably.
- Can caleb.grim become the second repeat winner of Best Author? Besides his series on Dominator power rankings, a close contender for the award, he also continued to churn out a number of punchy, thought-provoking articles on everything from maximizing DSFL player builds to analyzing teams' run-pass balances. Each is a digestible and unique window into one particular aspect of the league, and all of them are worth a perusal.
- CaptainDMG was the most prolific rookie author this year by number of articles. His pieces all form into one long stream of personal thought, shifting over time from accounts of his player to accounts of himself, his perspectives on the league, and his interactions with real people around it. It all flows together to create a sort of journal-like, thoughtful narrative, although my favorite segment is most likely his description of falling down the rabbit hole of league information and going off on long tangents of discovery.
- Drizzy's articles share more than just being center-aligned – all three use this format and other tools like color and layout to create an effective vehicle for his content. Aside from the Colorado history piece already mentioned, a similar level of inquisitiveness and simple yet well-rounded summary permeates both his long-term recap of the highlights of the S18 Draft and his more contemporary take on the ISFL games of Week 14.
- The star of the bunch here is undoubtedly the article that won lemon a Gemini, but aside from that his media embodies a pretty wide range from the serious to the comic. Really, though, pretty much everything lemon writes has a healthy bit of both. The article matching every DSFL team to a picture of his dog and the one running a max earner survivor on the S43 class both demonstrate the deceptive amounts of effort that go into such silly premises, although I must say that I am shocked the week-late Gemini Awards still came out before lemon's did.
- As a total package, I'm not sure I love any other author's work this year more than lock. To be frank, their DSFL scorigami article almost won them their second career Gemini, not to mention their other nominated work or the two Zenzeroni dramas that would fit right into their Best New Author catalog from last year. It's easy to say that lock is funny, but judging by their portfolio it is hard to think of anything they wouldn't be able to write about and make absolutely riveting.
- Just when I thought that the "X as X" genre had withered away from its heights only a few months ago, thewhovian is here to prove me wrong. These were some creative takes on the concept too; between matching positions to DnD classes (with 100% accuracy, judging by wizard GMs) and prospects to astrological signs, all of her writing went beyond vapid comparisons and dug into the topic with gusto and an eye for sharp, consistent presentation.
- Speaking of wizard GMs, wiz is only here because he wrote that lovely article on the salary cap and league economic reform. Otherwise, he wasted away at the whims of the infamous Sean RobinSZN, whose diabolical contract forced this poor man to write him puff pieces whenever he had a good game. The media scene fears the day that Sean becomes New York's primary receiver.
- By this point, zayn has become one of the premier mock drafters every offseason, and this year he turned in three iterations of his work. Not only did the information improve with every attempt, the formatting did as well, and zayn's thorough reasoning and research have most likely influenced a great many users' draft predictions. To see how well he did, tune in tonight at 5 o'clock Pacific.
@caleb.grim!
The road to repeating was not easy, but in the end caleb.grim deserved to pull ahead. Best Author is a competition of quantity in conjunction with quality, and he has clearly mastered combining both to create consistent, enjoyable media content that always approaches topics from a fresh angle and with methodological precision. Caleb.grim can now claim his third career Gemini.
Best New Author
This category recognizes the newcomer authors on the block, whose early dedication and hard work shines through their content.
And the nominees are…
@CaptainDMG
- This Best Author nominee predicted that no one except media graders would do more than skim his articles, so I encourage you to take a few minutes and prove him wrong.
- Fireyheart's work this year came entirely through the harrowing journey of Triceracop. Each time I revisit the series I find something new to appreciate, so I'll just quickly mention that I find his descriptive imagery to be really interesting to read as it blends together the story setting and the references of other players pretty seamlessly.
- Grimm had a grand total of one article published in Season 44, but this successor to their nominated work last year on DSFL standouts remains just as impressive as before. They have the formatting down pat, weaving between stat tables and player recaps with a deft touch and giving the highlighted players their due diligence and kudos.
- This Best Author nominee thinks that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a good movie. There's no such thing as a wrong opinion, but…
- Tmoney wrote with a certain informal attitude for his articles, the standout of which graded the mocks for the S44 Draft in relation to how the draft actually turned out. His approach didn't go for strict accuracy, instead prioritizing a neat discussion on why teams chose the players they did and why mocks may have erred, not to mention another piece's fun look into his player's statistical progress compared to Hall of Famers in their rookie years.
@CaptainDMG!
The work of CaptainDMG offered a unique perspective on both the league and league media, a casual and honest approach to writing that made his contributions this year stand out. No other rookie took to the media scene with as much fervor as he did. The worthiness of these articles is self-evident enough to justify the Gemini as a well-deserved reward.
Congratulations to @lemonoppy, @aeonsjenni, @caleb.grim, and @CaptainDMG for your Gemini victories, and congrats to everyone else who was nominated or who contributed to the media scene in any fashion this year. These were some tough decisions. I encourage anyone who hasn't read any of the media pieces mentioned above to take some time out of your day and peruse; I promise it will be time well spent.
And for all the new people who recently joined the league, or anyone who hasn't written media in a while, I hope you are inspired in some capacity to write something of your own. This award could soon be yours.
I'll see you in Season 45!
Transgender lesbian, S15 veteran, and media extraordinaire. Fascists and bigots are welcome to fuck off.
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For Your Reading Consideration:
Before the Butchers | The Jungle
The Giving Tree | Volume II | Volume III
A Winter of Discontent | Volume II
The Rockiest Road | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | Finale
Two Essays on Unfree Agency: On Agents | On Contracts
Eclipse of the Honey Moon | Volume II
Gemini Media Awards:
S39 | S40 | S41 | S42 | S43 | S44 | S45 | S46
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For Your Reading Consideration:
Before the Butchers | The Jungle
The Giving Tree | Volume II | Volume III
A Winter of Discontent | Volume II
The Rockiest Road | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | Finale
Two Essays on Unfree Agency: On Agents | On Contracts
Eclipse of the Honey Moon | Volume II
Gemini Media Awards:
S39 | S40 | S41 | S42 | S43 | S44 | S45 | S46
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