Regina: the theory behind how it works is that those who sign up for the contest both write the contest entries and provide the topic characters. In practice, there's usually a bit of variance; while the idea is for each participant to write a fic each month, it's not uncommon for folks to miss one or more months if they're completely stumped (or if Real Life intrudes), but at least some amount of participation is generally expected.
At least, that's my understand of it, and of where Hugin is coming from with his statement.
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Time is the fire in which is forged the shape of things to come.