I've been meaning to get around to this for a while, but here we are now. I've been sidetracked bigtime, folks. That's all you need to know.

BR's already talked about this a bit in the Reference Desk topic. Yeah, contest #42 started off as a joke. That's why the introduction is especially silly. If it was serious from the start, I doubt I'd have done it up quite like that. Anyhow, I posted it as a joke. I was kinda entertaining notions of just keeping it going anyway (I mean, why waste a number like 42?), but nothing too committed yet.

I go to sleep. The next day, when everyone's up and about and panicking way too much, I check out my little contest. The outcry, the riots, the flaming... where is it? Is that... is that... sincere approval of the theme? It can't be. No no.

But it was. Oh, was it ever. A 200+ ever at this point, but that's not important at this stage. At that early stage, what I saw was a whole bunch of people who seemed to really enjoy the theme and who hoped it was for real. I saw people who never poke around in BBC taking interest in the theme. Do you realize how fantastic this was for me?

So I put in a word with the admin-types that I was gonna take this one and run with it after all. My major reasons are as follows:

• A lot of you showed interest in it. And not even sarcastic interest either. Yeah, sure, there were some naysayers, but we get those every contest. I wouldn't dream of trying to please everyone: if I wind up doing that, then there's definitely something wrong.
• It hauled out people who don't usually poke around in BBC much. Bringing in fresh blood and ideas? Giving people a theme that's very friendly to the extremely casual/never-does-it builder? I'd be nuts to pass it up.
• You can't just slap a humanoid in here and call it your entry. You actually have to try building something different. You have to try something new: breaking out of your cozy little comfort zone and expanding as a builder is essential for many people in this contest. As well, in virtually all cases, you can't enter 'that MOC you're saving up for a contest that fits it'. 'Contest' means 'challenge', people. You're supposed to build to it, not have it fit you.
• It's fun and evil forcing a forum filled with guys to make 'cute' stuff. You know me and my evil.