geeking out on shakespeare's histories

I hear you; as someone who has run a ficathon myself, I do have to say I've heard every excuse under the sun, both entirely valid and entirely self-serving, so I tend to assume the worst. Here's the thing. Assuming there's a valid reason for forfeiting, a writer's responsibility is to let the ficathon mod know in a timely fashion, so the pinch hits can be written and posted along with the others.
Clearly this did not happen in the case of the story being written, or not-written, for me. As someone who was told my story was coming...and coming...and coming, I do think whoever had the assignment originally could have handled the situation with more candor and speed about not being able to deliver. If they didn't do so, then they did not act appropriately. Thus, Fail.

That being said, this in no way is a reflection on my wonderful pinch-hit story, even though the fact it arrived late clued me to the fact it was a pinch hit. This tells me good things about lareinenoire, who wrote such an elegant story on short notice, and not-so-good things about the defaulter. The story, and getting to write Richard II, were the best parts of this experience.