Telephone Pictionary: The Mandate of Heaven (complete!)

[Telephone Cat]

Guys. Guys. There is no new Best Mish Mash scummie winner for 2014 yet. There's just me. And that means that I have a divine right to run this game. To run this game like the grand Mish Mash scummie-winning empress that I currently am, and behead anyone who gets in my way.

I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Telephone Pictionary (also called Eat Poop You Cat, Fax Machines and probably some other things) is a game of silly miscommunication. The results of the most recent game can be found here, and they'll give you a better idea of how things work than any description I can type. Drawing--and drawing under 72 hour deadlines--is required, although talent isn't necessary. (Effort is still appreciated!)

For reference, my main account is Ether, and she can be contacted via AIM at CaffieneDeity. If I die, Amrun and petroleumjelly know the password to this account and should be able to continue my sacred dynasty.

Status:

Complete! You can find the chains below, or check the wiki. This account's wiki page will also redirect to that.

Players:

1. EspeciallyTheLies
2. Magua
3. GuyInFreezer
4. ChannelDelibird
5. Equinox
6. Empking
7. Shanba
8. ZZZX
9. JerryArr
10. Jackel98
11. Jingle
12. DrippingGoofball
13. BipolarChemist
14. Kaboose
15. The Bulge
16. Bins
17. N
18. Marquis
19. petroleumjelly
20. PiggyGal15

Chains: 20/20
Adonai
Bast
Cthulhu
Demeter
Ereshkigal
Fujin
Ganesh
Hel
Ishtar
Jupiter
Kali
Loki
Maat
Nemesis
Odin
Poseidon
Quetzalcoatl
Ra
Sekhmet
Tiamat

[Telephone Cat]

tl;dr: Fast chains get fast reveals. Slow players get replaced. And your chain had better not corrupt any innocent 13-year-olds.

• Game Flow:
  
  
• Everyone signed up should start by PMing me with a sentence. It shouldn't be incredibly long, but it can basically be as silly as you want it to be. Some good examples can be found in these chains, but please don't copy those exactly.
  
• When the game starts, each of these sentences will be sent out to a different player.
  This player will have 72 hours
  to portray that sentence in picture form and send me the result.
  
• Once the picture is drawn, it will be sent to a third person as soon as that person has also sent its picture in. When you get a picture, you have have 48 hours to send in a sentence summarizing it.
  I'll send you pictures to summarize as sentences as I receive them, even if you already have other things to draw/write. Please send in sentences promptly! It shouldn't take too long.
  
• You'll only have one active picture to draw at a time. I might send you sneak peaks of future sentences, but you won't be under any deadline obligations for those until later. (But feel free to complete them early anyway!)
  
• Each chain will continue for 13 of these rounds: 7 sentences and 6 pictures. Chains will be posted on the wiki as they are completed, which will probably vary wildly.
  
• The thread title probably isn't going to change much, since lots of you will be on different rounds at the same time.
  
• If you cannot meet a deadline, please notify me as soon as you've received the sentence (or picture)--or, better yet, tell me before you receive one. I will find somebody else and send it there. I will also do this automatically if you have not drawn it in 72 hours. In this way, it is possible for one player to have more than one sentence to draw at once.
  
• Somebody who consistently fails to meet deadlines will be kicked out of the game at my discretion. Especially somebody who doesn't announce V/LAs beforehand. So don't do that!

• Picture/sentence standards:
  
  
• Any drawing program--Photoshop, Flash, MS Paint--will do. Drawing pictures by hand and scanning them will also do. Making a diorama with paper cutouts and silly putty and sending a photograph of that will do. The sky is pretty much the limit here. In fact, if you can get your hands on one of those airplanes that draws pictures out of fake clouds, then the sky is literally the limit here.
  
• Having said that, please draw everything from scratch. You can use Google Images as a reference, but don't paste other people's pictures into your own.
  
• Words are completely banned. English letters used to denote words, and codes (camel octopus dinosaur eagle snake), will also be sent back with a stern warning, although if it's relevant you can use them to portray the alphabet. Numbers and symbols and math are all fine.
  
• Please don't intentionally mislead anybody--do the most accurate non-legalistic picture that you can. The chain will find a way to mutate anyway.
  
• Pictures should be 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall. Please don't go too far over that; some of us have tiny laptop screens. Photographs are best saved as JPGs; otherwise, if in doubt, you should probably save as a PNG. Do not save as a BMP under any circumstances or I'll have to ask you to reformat it before sending it onward, and nobody wants that.
  
• Please be mindful of where you upload your pictures to. Tinypic deletes its pictures without warning, and anything uploaded to the wiki is accessible by other players. Most people use Imgur these days. Photobucket's also a good bet, if you have that--but make sure that the album that you put your pictures in is private.
  
• When you upload, don't save it under a name that will hint at its origins. This is something else that you'll need to reformat over.
  
• Okay, on to sentences. Keep it to one sentence and don't be too legalistic about what you are summarizing. If you don't think the picture is about the fourth wall, don't break the fourth wall.
  
• Please don't break the site rules. Keep it reasonably safe for work, and preferably not too gross. (Really I just hate chains about poop.)
  
• I am one of those spirit-of-the-game type hippies. If I'm forgetting a rule, I'll let you know. You might be asked to resubmit in light of this.

• Miscellaneous:
  
  
• Please don't talk to other players about the sentences/pictures you got. If somebody tells you anything about a chain you haven't seen yet, please let me know.
  
• I will note in-thread if somebody is behind.
  
• If you haven't sent a link in within 48 hours for a picture or 24 for a sentence, I'll send you a prod. Other actions may be taken if you're inactive for the full round.
  
• Have fun! If you aren't having fun, you should talk to me about it, and I'll do my best to find you a replacement. You can also talk to me when you are having fun, of course.

[Telephone Cat]

Also, a tl;dr on the image rules:

-Any medium, online or off, is fine.
-Don't copy/paste anything you found on Google Images (or anything else that you didn't draw)

-This has never come up, but: if you are physically making a collage out of a magazine, that counts as a medium and you can do it, but please only use pictures you can find offline

-No words or abbreviations (numbers, symbols and letters that do not correspond to words and abbreviations are fine)
-Save as .png, .jpg or .gif
-800 pixels wide, 600 pixels tall--please don't go over that. If you're using MS Paint, hit Ctrl+E to change the image size.
-Don't save files with names that would hint at the sentence
-Don't save files in places with public albums--if you're using Photobucket, make the album private

Tips for MS Paint novices:
-Save it as a PNG. JPGs are more for photographs; they might blur things up.
-If you're using the Windows 7 or 8 versions, and the fillbucket isn't working the way you want, it's because of antialiasing. Try drawing your lines with the pencil tool instead of one of the brushes!
-If you're stuck using the Windows 7 or 8 versions, but are like me and think that Vista's version was way better, contact me and I'll walk you through the downgrade.

[Telephone Cat]

While this game is open to people of all abilities, please don't TRY to draw things that are bad. Push the envelope! See what you can do!

I still need sentences from GuyInFreezer, Shanba and ZZZX.

[Telephone Cat]

The game is almost full, and ZZZX REALLY needs to send his sentence. His slot in this game isn't secure until I have it.

[Telephone Cat]

And with that, the game is full! I'll send out sentences shortly.

I don't know where ZZZX is. If he doesn't send me a last-minute sentence while I'm in the middle of this, I'll put one of my own into the pot instead.

[Telephone Cat]

I think he's alive, I just don't think he's following this thread, and I worry about what else he didn't read before signing up.

Anyway, all sentences are out!

[Telephone Cat]

Actually, that award goes to ChannelDelibird.

A ton of people got right to this immediately. It's awesome. Kaboose is already on his second picture, and you'll see your prompt for that fairly soon as well.

[Telephone Cat]

With the support of Jackal98 and his own speedy SAI skills, Kaboose has broken the Round 4 barrier!

[Telephone Cat]

You need to pray harder!

[Telephone Cat]

Round 2 is now 75% complete. We are about 26 hours into the game. I love you all.

[Telephone Cat]

Only hellfire awaits you, YOUNG MAN.

[Telephone Cat]

With the support of CDB and ZZZX and their prompt perseverance, EspeciallyTheLies has broken the Round 6 barrier!

[Telephone Cat]

All is forgiven!

[Telephone Cat]

With the support of CDB and ZZZX and their prompt perseverance, EspeciallyTheLies has broken the Round 6 barrier!

And through that, GuyInFreezer has broken the Round 8 barrier!

Jackel98 is now on track to see his Round 10 prompt before his Round 4.

[Telephone Cat]

We are now 48 hours into the game! Prods have been sent out accordingly, but not a lot of them.

[Telephone Cat]

Jackel98 is now on track to see his Round 10 prompt before his Round 4.

We did it, you guys!

We did it!

[Telephone Cat]

Jackel98 has broken the Round 10 barrier. We are less than 72 hours into this game, and we are well on our way to a completed chain.

[Telephone Cat]

Like I said, Jackel hasn't even seen his Round 4 yet. Even now! This is the first chance he's had to draw a picture since his first one.

This game is going really fast--we're past the 1/4th mark and will almost certainly pass 40 pictures tomorrow (out of 120 total). Normally with these games I expect the first completed chains to come in around the one week mark, and the Ishtar chain here is already only one picture away from completion--you'll almost certainly see it tomorrow.

Sentences are all over the place, though. You'll be the last person to get a Round 3, Bins, but you and Jackel have actually gotten the same number of sentences total so far.

[Telephone Cat]

Round 2 is COMPLETE.

[Telephone Cat]

At less than 72 hours into the game, Ishtar is up!

It was a pretty stable chain overall, although I love where Marquis took it in the end. ETL's dragon kicked ass.

For a Canadian, DGB sure does have a strong understanding of how we patriotic Americans throw parties. It's always corn-shucking, every time.

[Telephone Cat]

Kaboose, you're close! I just received and passed on the prompt to get the sentence you're drawing for. Ideally your Round 8 shouldn't take too long either.

ETL, you're still stuck for a while, though. Getting a picture every day requires the people ahead of you to draw one every day...and in your case, they did and you got to Round 6 early, but now your Round 8 is likely to be one of the slower ones.

For reference, the last two games I ran under this system took 2-3 weeks to complete--one on the lower end, one on the higher. Of course, the last two games each finished their first chain on the one week mark, so I think we can do better.

[Telephone Cat]

Nah, you're one of the faster ones. (Your last sentence just went to Bins, if you're curious. The planned out chains are listed out on the wiki, which my own page redirects to.) In this case, ETL needs Equinox to draw her Round 6, but she's not quite finished with her Round 4 yet.

[Telephone Cat]

Incidentally, DGB has just drawn the first Round 8 picture that ISN'T in Ishtar.

[Telephone Cat]

Jupiter, but it's still the Jesus chain.

[Telephone Cat]

Round 4 is COMPLETE.

[Telephone Cat]

ZZZX has broken the non-Ishtar Round 10 barrier!

We're over halfway through the game at this point, incidentally. 65/120 pictures done.

[Telephone Cat]

I'd give pretty good odds of at least one coming up tomorrow, and possibly more.

[Telephone Cat]

I'm bad at daylight savings time. I hope we just get to EDT soon so I can stop worrying about converting them across the deadline, because I'm pretty sure I did it wrong.

[Telephone Cat]

The countdown also requires a final time!

[Telephone Cat]

WEEK ONE COMPLETE

78/120 pictures drawn
10% of chains are on Round 6
25% of chains are on Round 8
5% of chains are on Round 9
30% of chains are on Round 10
5% of chains are on Round 11
20% of chains are on Round 12
5% of chains have been completed.

[Telephone Cat]

Kali is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Loki is up!

Please ignore the early parts of the chain. They're just British propaganda.

[Telephone Cat]

Fujin is up!

I'm impressed by how long the Pringles man lasted. Procter and Gamble was on to something.

[Telephone Cat]

Round 6 is COMPLETE.

[Telephone Cat]

Maat is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Magua's got less than an hour to go...I might need a replacement for him in Ganesh.

If it came to that, {EspeciallyTheLies, ChannelDelibird, DrippingGoofball, petroleumjelly, The Bulge, Bins, Marquis} would be eligible to take it, as well as anyone outside of the game. I'd need it fast, though: the chain's been at a standstill long enough!

[Telephone Cat]

It's official: Magua's prompt is now in Marquis's hands. Magua has been bumped on to his Round 10.

[Telephone Cat]

We are losing our stride. x_x

EspeciallyTheLies's prompt in Quetzalcoatl has been passed to Techno Elf.

[Telephone Cat]

Round 10. It's on CDB's shoulders right now.

Tiamat is the only chain that's still on Round 8, for reference.

[Telephone Cat]

Odin is up!

This is another one like Ishtar that stabilized early on, but would probably have shifted if it had gotten any further. As it stands, Waldo's crimes are clearly lodged deep in our collective subconscious, and they are not easily forgotten.

[Telephone Cat]

It's cool. Will you be in a state to take the next prompt when I get it?

[Telephone Cat]

It isn't due. You're under no deadline obligations to draw it until you've received and drawn your Round 10. (Of course, if you draw it sooner, I can put it on the wiki as soon as GuyInFreezer writes its last sentence.)

[Telephone Cat]

Round 8 is COMPLETE.

[Telephone Cat]

Ra is up!

Romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, horror...this chain had it all.

[Telephone Cat]

Jesus

Jupiter is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Tiamat is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Imgur is being weird for me...I can put up Poseidon when I can see its Round 8 and Round 12 again, but right now they aren't showing. Not sure what's going on here.

[Telephone Cat]

The issue doesn't seem to have been fully resolved, but Poseidon is up.

[Telephone Cat]

Adonai is up!

Like he said, I need a replacement for PJ in Quetzalcoatl. That's open to {Marquis, PiggyGal15, Kaboose, Jackel98, JerryArr, Empking, ChannelDelibird}, and anyone following along at home. This is a volunteer job, and I need it fast--please only take this with that in mind!

I might need a replacement for The Bulge as well, in 45 minutes. That one's for Hel.

[Telephone Cat]

I'm gonna try to hold out for someone faster, sorry.

Axxle takes PJ's. For reference, the eligible players who are not already banished to Hel are {EspeciallyTheLies, Magua, Jackel98, BipolarChemist, Bins, N, petroleumjelly}. (Of course, if The Bulge shows up in the next half hour, this is a moot point.)

[Telephone Cat]

Being be-afro'd is to afros as being bejeweled is to jewels, if that helps.

[Telephone Cat]

Ganesh is up!

That pig in Marquis's picture is taking that scene in much better than I would be.

[Telephone Cat]

Right, it's official: The Bulge missed his deadline, and Hel is open for business.

[Telephone Cat]

Nemesis is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Round 10 is COMPLETE.

[Telephone Cat]

Sekhmet is up!

I need a replacement for Demeter. {GuyInFreezer, ZZZX, Jackel98, BipolarChemist, Kaboose, N, Empking} are eligible, as well as anyone outside of the game.

[Telephone Cat]

Axxle got it again, sorry.

[Telephone Cat]

Ereshkigal is up!

Marquis's picture here is completely horrifying.

[Telephone Cat]

Hel is up!

[Telephone Cat]

WEEK TWO COMPLETE

117/120 pictures drawn
15% of chains are on Round 12
5% of chains are on Round 13
80% of chains have been completed.

[Telephone Cat]

It's looking like I'll need to replace Magua. That's for Cthulhu, and {EspeciallyTheLies, Shanba, ZZZX, JerryArr, Jingle, BipolarChemist, petroleumjelly} are eligible, as well as anyone outside of the game. Please volunteer when you're ready to take it, and not before!

[Telephone Cat]

I was offline for a bit, and Magua got his picture to me during that time, so I'm going to pass that one on.

[Telephone Cat]

Cthulhu is up!

[Telephone Cat]

Your chain's been up for a while. You had Nemesis.

[Telephone Cat]

Demeter is up!

I'm sad that the hero of Madrid was lost so soon. At least the mean streets are safe.

[Telephone Cat]

Quetzalcoatl is up!

Only one chain remains.

[Telephone Cat]

I need a replacement for ETL in Bast. {ChannelDelibird, Equinox, Empking, ZZZX, DrippingGoofball, N, PiggyGal15} are eligible, as well as anyone not playing.

[Telephone Cat]

Empking got it.

[Telephone Cat]

And Bast is up, concluding this game of Telephone Pictionary!

[Telephone Cat]

I appreciate that!

Generally I'll accept any picture that keeps censor bars in the appropriate (or inappropriate) places.

People have different limits on what subject matter they actually want to draw, though. Personally I get annoyed if someone makes me draw pee, poop or genitalia, but will draw suggestive stuff without a problem as long as it's at least a little covered up. That's the guideline I wind up nudging sentence-writers toward, in a really uneven "sometimes I am just not in the mood to obstruct people's free speech but I'll still be judging you in silence" way. (It doesn't help that some people got really mad when ReaperCharlie tried to censor a PMS joke in one of his games. I think PMS jokes are hilarious and ReaperCharlie was a dick about it afterward, but people still made a weirdly huge deal of it first.) I'm kind of curious if people want me to be more or less heavy handed; I tend to feel kind of awkward either way when I get sentences like that.