Contest! Imposing Sovereigns IV: The Aluminum Jubilee · 2:50pm Oct 1st, 2023
I’ve been in this fandom for a long time. About a third of my life at this point (which is its own breed of terror to herald the start of Spooky Season.) And in a few months, I’ll be celebrating ten years of Friendship is Card Games. According to tradition, that’s the tin or aluminum anniversary.
And now you have context for the contest’s subtitle.
That’s right, while I announced the last generation of Imposing Sovereigns after ten years on the site, this one will end after ten years of card blogs. That said, I’m not demanding Magic: the Gathering crossovers. As with the contest’s ancestors, the task here is to write about a ruler and the challenges of rulership. That can mean a literal sovereign—your Celestias, your Sombras, your Havens—or someone else in a leading position. Filthy Rich as CEO, Abacus Cinch as principal, Alphabittle as the closest thing the Bridlewood unicorns even have to an authority figure, all are fair game.
AUs are also welcome. Princess Rainbow Dash is on the table, as are Provisional Guard Captain Spearhead, Queen Ocellus, and even High Priestess Raven Inkwell (though ask Shaslan first if you’re going that route.) The only limit is that the focus character can’t be completely original. Background ponies, sure. OCs in the supporting cast, no problem. Putting the spotlight on your own creation, not so much.
But that’s not the only part of the prompt. It wouldn’t be an Imposing Sovereigns contest without the Multidimensional Prompt Matrix (pat. pend.) In this case, it’s similar to IS3, virtues that define the ruler and their style of ruling. This time, I’ve tried to pick virtues that have less overlap with one another. And yes, this is where the MtG tie-in comes in, as five out of the seven are the courtly virtues of Eldraine, that land of faerie tales given form.
Your options are as follows:
• Loyalty: Demonstrating genuine devotion, whether to the nation’s ideals, its people, its history, or some other (usually) unbreakable connection between queen and country that guides her rule. This devotion may or may not be reciprocated or even founded on anything resembling the truth, but it is sincere.
• Knowledge: Ruling with the brain, whether through applied research, mystic enlightenment, or strategically wielded secrets. This covers surveillance states and Machiavellian wheels within wheels as much as it does the utopian reign of benevolent philosopher-queens.
• Persistence: Enduring and (usually) overcoming hardships and setbacks from other nations, internal tension, and the leader’s own mind and body. This does lead to the question of why this sort of thing keeps happening so often that the reign is defined by it…
• Courage: Going where others fear to tread, be it audacity in internal affairs, daring in diplomacy, or cajones in combat. This is for the rulers who aren’t afraid to risk it all in pursuit of a (usually) better future… and who may not think about the consequences of failure.
• Strength: Putting the leader above their subjects, acting from a superior political, moral, or physical position. This is for god-emperors and gurus as much as it is Goliaths and generalissimos, and not just their (usually) inevitable dramatic falls. Sometimes they actually deserve their position at the top of the heap.
• Harmony: Exemplifying the virtues of friendship, unity, and everything else the show champions. Which may or may not work out in the political arena, no usuallies about it. And Rainbow Beams of Fixing Everything rarely work on the world stage…
• Unorthodoxy: For the unusual, the unready, the unhinged, and everyone else whose greatest virtue in ruling (if any) doesn’t fall into any of the other six categories. Also for outside-context problems, solutions, and complications.
As with last time, you don’t have to reserve a character-virtue combination in advance, but I do hope to see some creativity rather than thirty different Shining Armor/Courage stories about changing Flurry Heart’s diaper. (And I’m sure I’ve given at least one person their prompt for the contest. You know who you are. 
)
Further conditions are as follow:
Rating: Everyone or Teen
Word Count: Hard cap of 15,000. Bear in mind that Fimfic’s word counter doesn’t always synch up with, say, GDocs’s.
Publication Date: Between the moment this blog went up and November 26th, 11:59 EST (though you do technically have a bit of wiggle room on the 27th before I wake up and close submissions.)
Multiple Submissions: Permitted, but you can’t win more than one prize.
Prizes: On that note:
1st Place: $100
2nd Place: $75
3rd Place: $50
Honorable Mentions: $20, one per judge
PayPal will be the default payment method. We can discuss alternate methods or charitable donations when I PM you with the happy news.
Moreover, each of the top three is entitled to a signed physical copy of Oversaturation, assuming they’re comfortable with giving me a mailing address.
Judges: Myself, Olden Bronie, TCC56, and Venerable Ro. Naturally, judges are not eligible for prizes.
AU Policy: As noted above, the AU tag is practically expected in an Imposing Sovereigns fic. However, if you set your story in a pre-established setting, the story must stand on its own. No required reading allowed; you’ll need to cram the background info in along with the story itself. (Writing something in the Oversaturated World is appreciated, but will not grant any bonus points for pandering to the contest runner. ) Sequels are technically permitted, though they also need to stand on their own. Likewise crossovers; you can do them, but you need to introduce the nonpony concepts in the story along with the narrative.
Anthology Policy: You can submit a single chapter of an anthology to the contest provided that chapter meets all of the requirements (15k words or fewer, T or E, etc.) Be sure to indicate which chapter is the entry (e.g. "(IS4 Entry)" in the chapter title.)
Story Description: Be sure to include something along these lines in the long description, replacing fields as appropriate:
An entry in Imposing Sovereigns IV, using the prompt (character)/(virtue).
If the chosen prompt would spoil the story, you’re welcome to put it in the author’s note, but please do include it somewhere. You’re not required to use the associated color for the virtue, but hey, style points. 
Story Submission: Be sure to submit your story to the appropriate folder of the contest group! Note that you may need to do so from the story page if there aren’t any entries in that folder yet. Let me know if you have any difficulties; I may need to tweak some permissions.
Feel free to ask about anything I’ve left unclear. And most importantly, have fun!
And for those wondering about the lucky numbers from the judge volunteer blog:
4th Imposing Sovereigns
7 categories
10th anniversary of FiCG
13 and 50 are the atomic numbers of aluminum and tin, respectively
Thrones of Eldraine is the 82nd MtG expansion.
I actually opened up my ideas file and started searching before I went "Wait. I'm judging this, what am I doing?"
5748685
I mean, you can submit an entry. It just won't be eligible for prizes.
I haven't managed to get anything for one of these since the first one but hopefully this time...!
Hmm. Might roll in, had an idea that aligns with the theme of this contest. Interesting
Though imposing sovereigns is all that I seem to strive to write about generally, so it's not that surprising
Huh. *glances at current project* You know what, I actually was thinking in the planning stage that this would fit another Sovereign contest and I do better with a deadline to fight so. Sure, hell the why not.
I'm tempted to try to force a square peg into a round hole again, but I'm much more tempted to procrastinate again.
Inside Baseball Alert: the remaining two are based on multicolor and colorless, judging by both logic and their color associations independently.
Good luck to all the entrants!
Interesting...
🤔
I was not expecting a shoutout here
and you know, if I was going to do a Flower Wars sequel, Raven Inkwell is probably the way to go...
HMMMmmm...
Well, we'll see.
Regardless, great to see this come back for another round, can't wait to see what comes out of it this time.
Squeals in delight.
I have been waiting for this! Oh, man, this is gonna be exciting. Count me in.
Ok, question. Do gods count as Sovereigns?
Alright, I think I’ve got something! I’m coming for that copy of Oversaturation, FoME!
5748701
What can I say? It's stuck with me.
5748706
Yes, provided that they're actively worshiped or otherwise have some form of hierarchy beneath them. (Heavenly bureaucracies, legions of demons, subjugated lesser horrors of the Outer Void, etc.) Many deific interpretations of Discord would be good examples of gods who don't qualify as sovereigns.
I'm quite looking forward to this, thanks for the opportunity!
5748686
Hello, I would like to invite you to repost the contest in the Hall of Contests [SFW] group. Hope it will be another successful contest.
I know we don't have to reserve pairs this time, but:
Flurry Heart/Loyalty
Let's do this.
Can one use multiple characters (the rule of two sisters) and multiple virtues in a single story?
5748747
Given that I'm not asking people to reserve slots in advance, I'm going to allow this. Just don't do more than two or three or your story's going to be awfully muddled.
5748748 So, a single story can go into multiple folders?
So counting honorable mentions, there are 7 prizes available.
>Sees PatchworkPoltergeist is entering
Okay, there are 6 prizes available.
four? holy butts :O
5748750
By this principle, yes.
I hope this is a great time! Man, I haven’t written in a while…
Coincidentally, I've been wanting to write a story talking about Equestrian royalty for a while. I have an excuse now.
The real tough part will be writing it on time.
Are G5 stories allowed?
To all the contestants: good writing! To all the judges: good reading!
5749041
Certainly.
5749055
Thank you.
MtG I do not know a lick of a thing about, and IS I am unfamiliar with, but I might give this a shot just for the sheer hell of it.
At best, I win a prize
and get people scratching their heads. At worst...well, it's good practice for whatever character(s) I write about. Could always use that.Are you ready for another "good ideas sloppy execution" entry!? Because you better be!... I hope, if I get the time to write. :/
When I first saw this announcement:
I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah. I entered one of these before, didn't I?"
But now, taking a closer look at my story list, I see that I've entered all three of the previous ones and even got a judge's prize last time. So I feel something of an obligation to see what I can put together between now and the end of Thanksgiving Weekend...
Mike
I have an entry in that's a bit over 1000 words, but I ALSO have a second story idea that might run very close to the 15,000 word cap. Noting this, is the is the hard cap of 15,000 words for each story, or across ALL entries by an author? Or is there perhaps only a little limited flexibility across the entire total for all of an author's entries?
5749663
The word cap is per story.
5749680
Thanks!
Firstly, good luck to all the others who plan on entering! Aim for the first place, expect second, and do it all just for the fun of it!
Second, a question or so. 1) is the AU tag mandatory, and 2) are the alternate timelines from the Cutie Re-Mark counted as AU?
Just wanted to double check before I actually start writing.
5750207
AU isn't mandatory. You could easily write a story about Celestia, Chrysalis, Novo, or any number of other canonically established rulers.
Personally, I feel stories set in Glimmer splinter timelines merit the AU tag, but that's somewhat up for debate. They have the odd property of being canon alternate universes, after all. I certainly won't penalize you if you leave off the tag.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to publish in time. Would it be acceptable for me to participate with an unpublished story written in GDoc?
5751109
You should be able to get it on the auto-approval queue, which runs every ten minutes. Also, the deadline is in over a month. If you somehow end up racing it, then a link to the unpublished Fimfic story (with viewing password) is acceptable.
5751113 Oh, I thought I only had a few days left. My bad.
If we’re doing a story with multiple leaders, do they get one virtue each or do they have to share one?
5751581
Use the primary leader and corresponding virtue for the purposes of stating the prompt. If two or more are equally prominent in the story, pick one.
Hello, a little new to this competition so let me see if I got this straight:
Pick a character, elevate them/establish their authority, choose a virtue prompt, write a story that follows said prompt.
5752844
Pretty much, yeah. Feel free to look at the past entries in the contest group if you'd like some concrete examples.
5752847
Thanks
I might try my hand at this. I'm not very good at meeting deadlines, but this sounds fun! I have two story ideas I can try, but I'm not very sure I can hammer out the details, write the story, AND get it submitted in time.
5752951
Best of luck! And even if you miss the deadline, I hope you like the ideas enough to see them to fruition.
Sorry if this comes out as a bit of a silly question but, does that meant this is the last Imposing Sovereigns contest?
5754679
I generally space out Imposing Sovereigns contests every two years. I don't know if enough folks will still be here in 2025 to make IS5 worth it, myself included. We'll see what happens when it happens, but I didn't intend to make this one my final hurrah.