In response to Kefit's post earlier, I personally think it would set a negative precedent if I had won, because it would've been for reasons that went outside the actual boundaries of the contest. The object was to make four spellcards, and I would've won because I had a stage and some funny dialogue. So if I had won, what would somebody have needed to do to beat me? Make a better stage? I'd rather not start some sort of situation where just following the guidelines isn't enough, and the contestants have to keep upping the ante to compete.
Bells and whistles are encouraged because it makes the contests more fun, but if the contest calls for four spellcards, then the judging should be on just those four spellcards. I didn't have the best danmaku, so I didn't deserve to win.
(In retrospect, I technically threw the contest because I refused to convert two of my spells to attacks, which would've ruined my three paired spellcards gimmick. However, I could've simply removed the cutins for all three, and only had the last one as a spellcard. I'm not sure what to make of this, since my failure to come up with this solution resulted in a preferable outcome to the contest.)
