[M/M Shipping Contest 2022] Results! · 6:55am Jan 16th, 2023
reproduced from the forum post below:
Thank you all for your patience with the delay!
Contest results are always a tricky thing, because inevitably the vast majority of entries will end up not being recognized in them, even if they were very much enjoyed and loved and appreciated. As in all contests, but this one especially, I can say that I really appreciate all of you for having taken the time and effort to write a story for it. Thank you all so much! To those reading this, I hope you check out the stories here.
And to those who were inspired to write a fic for this contest but could not finish it by the cruel deadline, I really hope you do so one day! The Honorary Entries folder will be waiting for you, as will I.
Though for all of you contest entrants, winner or not, you can be proud for having contributed to a collective donation of $625 for Outright International, a charity dedicated to supporting LGBTIQ rights around the world! From their donation page:
- $500 funds a local LGBTIQ sensitivity training for media journalists, law enforcement agents or medical providers
- $250 helps subsidize one month of safe housing for one LGBTIQ person
- $75 purchases 40 lbs of rice or beans for an LGBTIQ person in a crisis
- $50 prints 350 pamphlets for an LGBTIQ community center to distribute to at-risk LGBTIQ people
- $30 helps one LGBTIQ person in a crisis buy food for two weeks
- $25 provides 60 minutes of capacity-building support for an LGBTIQ front-line human rights defender
- $10 provides one week of internet connection for an LGBTIQ community center
All of you, with each of your stories, made this possible. Isn't that neat?
And now, the prizes! Out of the 25 entries in the contest, we will be highlighting 7, and each of your stories made the final prize pool of $750 possible, split between the following awards:
- First Place: $300
- Second Place: $170
- Third Place: $100
- Fourth Place: $60
- Judge Prize: $40 (3x)
Now, on to the results!
Judge Prize: When I Look At You by Meteor_Mirage
King Sombra is a popular pony to ship for a reason, with his scenery-chewing dramatics being easily written as a dark and mysterious brooding over a past that was graciously left unwritten in the canon. This Sombra in particular is extra-deliciously broody, refusing to explain how he returned or why he is insisting on being kept in conditions befitting a prisoner in the catacombs of the Crystal palace. So of course our favorite nerdy unicorn is here to do his best to get him to open up, hapless situations and squeaks and all.
Contrasted with these more light-hearted scenes are the ones of Sombra’s tragic past, which made the story really stand out to me. Brisk and vivid and epic in its tragedy and scale, they felt like something out of a mythology, and the connections between this story of the past and Sunburst’s present add a powerful emotional ballast to its conclusion.
Judge Prize: Leaves like fire by Shaslan
This was definitely a ship I would never expect, but am now a huge fan of. The imagery and small mannerisms of the characters are straight up banger. Love the tension between them that blossoms into mutual respect and further into a possible romance. Both characters feel like their authentic selves, no de-toothed villains for the sake of making the romance work. The slow build up as the story unfolds is a beautiful thing to witness and well worth the investment. My only complaint is my need for more.
Judge Prize: The Flight Before the Fall by Melody Song
As many of us know, being gay isn’t all rainbows and pride parades. As nice as it can be to escape into a world where being gay is an accepted part of life, it can be just as comforting to see our struggles reflected in the characters we love.
The Flight Before the Fall paints a complicated picture of the Wonderbolt Lightning Streak dealing with trauma from his past as he tries to find happiness with Thunderlane. The author does an excellent job of weaving present-day scenes with Lightning’s flashbacks, all of it coming together in a complete, loveable character. This is an excellent fic about what it means to accept yourself as you are.
Fourth Place: Ponies Don't Court by ShowShine
There’s something to be said for a premise that is so simple and fun that it almost seems genius. After all, the half-avian, all predator griffons are a very different species from our little herbivorous mammalian ponies, so why wouldn’t they court in a way that is inscrutable to ponies? And since Sandbar is so special to Gallus, that’s all the more reason to go all-out about it, right?
This short fic executes that premise with charm and cleverness, rendering me unable to see griffon courting in any other way. I also appreciated that even with its short running time, the fic managed to fit in appearances by each of the rest of the Student Six, and in general felt like it should be an episode of the show itself. I knew what I was getting, and I loved what I got.
Third Place: A Collapse by The Red Parade
This story is proof—perhaps the proof—that romance should not always be purely happy. We associate romance with good feelings, and we should, but fiction especially is a place to explore other angles. Incompatibilities, anger, fights, loss… But beyond that, demonstrating that love can persist through all of these things, and how impossible it can feel to reconcile all of the right things with all of the wrong things.
In a word, A Collapse was haunting. The experimental structure serves the heart of this story well, building a sense of confusion and fogginess over an event that any sensible person would likely try their hardest to block out. Entire lines of dialogue are lost, leaving the reader to imagine what might have been said. Different scenes and times blend into one another in a runaway train stream-of-consciousness. It is a wonderful story that really takes advantage of the world it’s set in to depict a sudden heartbreak, words left unsaid, and memories distorted by trauma. Even more impressive, it does all of this in a tight 2000 words. I highly recommend exploring it yourself—it is well worth a read!
Second Place: Chasing Shadows by astrolatryy
What is not to love here? It's got gay boy-next-door Flash Sentry and our goth king Sombra. The characters feel authentic to both their personalities and age, being teenagers but not in such a way that's incredibly annoying. The slow build up to their eventual relationship is brilliant, mixed with a great plot that draws parallels to a canon event that I won't spoil. Its a slow burn done fast, with the unveiling of their eventual feelings for each other being build piece by piece over the course of the story with the finale bringing those feelings too light in the most appropriate way. The setup and execution is well done, the characterization is on point, and I absolutely adore these two together. Thye have an easy chemistry I can get behind and compliment the other in unexpected but wonderful ways, Sombra the confidence Flash needs, with Flash being the emotional support Sombra needs.
astrolatryy has crafted an incredible romance that is well worth the read if you need your gay fix in 20 K or less and more gay Flash and Sombra in your life. Honestly, I can't believe you're reading this instead of Chasing Shadows right now, go do that! For astrolatryy, standing ovation, good sir, banger read and well deserving of its second place win.
First Place: And You Said Yes by Vivid Syntax
And You Said Yes isn’t like most romance stories I've read. There are no mysterious pasts to uncover or awful struggles to overcome or fantastically tragic fates to dread. Rivet and Fashion Plate are background ponies who lived background pony lives together, and the vignettes in each of the seven chapters tell the story of that life.
It is a completely ordinary life, extraordinary only for the love that was in it, and even that is something that does not feel like it should be extraordinary. From the beginning, these two are truly good for each other, and we see just how their differences strengthen each other as their initial attraction blooms into a loving partnership built on admiration and support. As it matures through the experiences of fatherhood and family, we get a broad sense of just what it is that makes up a life, and a love. And all this is drawn with an eye for character and detail that makes them come alive in ways I’ve rarely seen matched in horsewords. I can feel the fullness of these characters and their lives, and that these seven slices of life could have been easily followed by seven million more.
It is a completely ordinary life, with completely ordinary struggles, and a completely ordinary tragic fate to dread.
It ends.
That fact is inevitable from the beginning, looming over it all with hints from the very first chapter. These vignettes are ones narrated by Rivet and Fashion Plate themselves as two old stallions, telling each other the story of their lives together for one very last time. And we see that end, and what it means, and that mix of dread and fear and love and happiness as the very last moments these two stallions will ever share come to their close.
All three of us did cry at the ending. I cried a lot. This story will stay with me for a long time, and I am beyond proud that I can present it as the first place winner of this contest.
And there we are! Prize winners will be contacted by PM over the next few days to disburse winnings. If you need to know of other currently-running contests, please check out the following:
- My and daOtterGuy's Flash Sentry Contest, ending 2023 Jan 29.
- Reactception's Sunset Shimmer x Polyship Contest, ending 2023 Feb 02.
See you later this year, when we will run the 2023 version of this contest, and it will be even gayer, somehow!
