The Rainbow Rocks 10th Anniversary Shipping Contest (May 26-August 3) · 6:12pm May 24th

Two blogs in one month? Scandalous. Well, as a reward for following me, you get to see a special preview of a contest launching in two days! Yes, we know there's a lot of contests going around right now (I should know), which is part of why this one will run a lot later than most of those. Anyway, this is your opportunity to get a head start, and also bug-test some of the rules before they get published on the group page and, hopefully, the front page.

Let us begin the Rainbow Rocks 10th Anniversary Summer Shipping Spectacular! (a.k.a. Spring Fling 2)

Welcome to the season of love.

Summer* has arrived (well, close enough, anyway), and with summer comes summer romances! But just who is getting together this year? Well, that's up to you!

*Or, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere: Winter has arrived! And it's up to you to choose who's bundling up together!

Last year, we hosted the Spring Fling contest, celebrating the 10th anniversary of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. And the turnout was spectacular -- better than we'd ever dared hope. Some of the best talent on the website, veterans and newcomers alike, assembled to deliver over 30 stories of EqG shipping goodness, with such an abundance of quality that narrowing it down to our finalists was genuinely stressful. To see last year's various prizewinners and honorable mentions, click here!

So here we are again a year later, just in time for us to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the sequel, Rainbow Rocks! We've been itching for this contest ever since the last one ended, and for darn good reason -- after all, for quite a lot of the fandom, Rainbow Rocks is the best EqG movie of all! So, whether you're a returning competitor, someone who missed their chance to enter last year, or someone who's just passionate about shipping our favorite technicolor humans, the Rainbow Rocks Summer Shipping Spectacular (or Wondrous Winter Wuvterland) is for you!

For this contest, your assignment is to take an identifiable human character introduced in the first two EqG movies – including Sunset Shimmer, the Humane Five, Flash Sentry, the Dazzlings, Lyra Heartstrings, and even background characters like Fuchsia Blush or Pixel Pizazz – and write a romance about them.

There’s a few rules below, but, basically, that’s it. A romance starring a character from our first or second outing in the pastel human dimension. What better way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Battle of the Bands?

Prizes!

How much we dole out in prizes will depend on how many entrants we get (submit stories here!). 5 stories unlocks a 2nd place prize, 10 stories unlocks 3rd place, and 18 stories unlocks the special judge prizes! So the more entries we get, the more (and bigger) the rewards! The minimum amount we'll be giving out is $75 USD; the maximum is well over $400 USD! (And that's before we get to the add-on prize...)

1st Place: $75 at minimum; $125 if we get 10 entries or more; $175 if we get 40 entries or more
2nd Place: $40 when unlocked; $70 if we get 10 entries or more; $100 if we get 40 entries or more
3rd Place: $35 when unlocked; $60 if we get 40 entries or more
Judge Prizes (x5): $13 when unlocked; $20 if we get 40 entries or more
Special Bonus Prize: Keep scrolling!

Prize amounts will be sent by PayPal or through Ko-Fi. If you are unable or unwilling to receive money in these manners, please contact me (EileenSaysHi) so we can arrange an alternative (e.g. a go-between, a charitable donation, etc.).

Judging Criteria

So how do you win these exciting prizes? Here’s some of the key things we’ll be judging your stories on:

How’s the writing? A contest-winning story should be well-written, readable, and have good spelling, grammar, and paragraph structure.

How engaging is your story? Does it have an interesting narrative? Is the romance compelling? Does it move at a good pace? The stories may all be below 15k words, but, if you’re not careful, they could still feel like a long read.

How believable is the pairing? While most pairings (including poly relationships) are allowed, a good story still needs to show why these characters would go well together, at least in the context it provides.

How much focus is the romance given? Is it the core of the story, or just a small part of it? This is a shipping contest, after all, so a winning entry won’t reduce the romantic aspect to just a token element.

Judges

And just who will be looking at your stories? I am happy to announce that our entire Spring Fling judging team is returning for another round, listed in alphabetical order below:

Avery Day, author of the Sunset/Sci-Twi stories Closer and Crowds & Constellations

Dewdrops on the Grass, author of That Special Day (Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash/Sci-Twi) and It Hurts to Cry (Flash/Sci-Twi)

EileenSaysHi, author of The Great and Powerful Trixie Needs a Date (Sunset/Trixie) and Apple Pie, a la Mode (Applejack/Pinkie Pie)

The Sleepless Beholder, author of The Cutest Deliverer (Sunset/Wallflower Blush) and Multithreaded Coupling (Midnight Sparkle/Demon Sunset)

TCC56, author of the Rarity/Applejack stories Shattered Ornaments and Like Cats and Dogs

Rules

The core rule of the contest, as noted above, is that it must focus on a pairing that involves at least one of any* of the human characters introduced in Equestria Girls (the 2013 movie) or Rainbow Rocks. That character can then be paired with any canon human EqG character that has appeared in animation (with a few restrictions – keep reading), including ones introduced in later EqG movies/series/specials, as well as FiM's Princess Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, as they've both made canonical appearances as humans in Equestria Girls.

So you have a lot of characters to choose from! Between the first two EqG movies, you have characters like:

Sunset Shimmer
The Humane Five (Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity)
Flash Sentry
The Dazzlings (Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, Sonata Dusk)
The Principals (Celestia and Luna)
The CMCs
Cheerilee
Micro Chips
Background Characters from the first movie (e.g. Sandalwood, Cherry Crash, Cloudy Kicks, Scribble Dee, Curly Winds, Wiz Kid, Brawly Beats)
Background Characters from Rainbow Rocks (e.g. Fuchsia Blush, Lavender Lace, Raspberry Fluff, Blueberry Pie, Violet Blurr, Pixel Pizazz)
Human Counterparts from the first movie (e.g. Trixie Lulamoon, Derpy Hooves, Photo Finish, Big Mac, Vinyl Scratch, the Cakes, Granny Smith)
Human Counterparts from Rainbow Rocks (e.g. Lyra Heartstrings, Bon Bon, Maud Pie, Octavia Melody, Bulk Biceps)
Characters introduced in the Rainbow Rocks shorts (Flim, Flam, Mr. Cranky Doodle)
And more!

Now remember, that’s a lot of eligible characters, but it doesn’t cover all EqG characters. For a few examples, Wallflower Blush, the Shadowbolts, Timber Spruce, Juniper Montage, Dean Cadance, and more weren’t introduced until after Rainbow Rocks. If you want to use these characters, you can – if you pair them with an eligible character like Sunset or the Dazzlings. (For poly relationships, at least half of the characters involved must be from the eligible roster.) The same applies for Princess Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, since they were introduced outside of EqG. Characters who never appear in human form in animated media, like Spike (either one) or ponies in Equestria, cannot be used.

What about Sci-Twi? At the very end of the credits of Rainbow Rocks, we get our first glimpse of the human world's very own Twilight Sparkle. But since it's only a credits cameo, and our favorite bespectacled dweeb doesn't get a defined character until Friendship Games, we're making the call that she doesn't meet our criteria for a Rainbow Rocks character. You can absolutely still use her in your story, but if she's part of a romantic pairing, it has to be with an eligible character to qualify.

We also urge you to exercise caution with pairing ages. Shipping adult humans with student-age characters is not allowed unless the latter are aged up (and, importantly, are not still students), and shipping students whose pony counterparts are foals with older students is not advised without an age-up as well. (For the purposes of this contest, the Dazzlings are considered student-age.)

Those are the important things to keep in mind when coming up with your story. Here are a few more general rules:

All stories must be complete, published, and added to the contest folder between 12:00am Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on Sunday, May 26 and 12:01am EDT on Sunday, August 4. Stories should also state that they are an entry for this contest in their long description. If you are publishing your first story and are concerned it will not make it through moderation by the deadline, contact EileenSaysHi and be prepared to give a link for the judges to access your story.
No edits may be made to stories between the deadline and announcement of results, though edits prior to the deadline are allowed.
All stories must be rated E or T.
All stories must be 15,000 words or less. Judges have the right to stop reading after 8,000 words (or after 2 chapters, whichever comes first) if they are not engaging with the material, and at any point if they are seriously uncomfortable with it. Contestants can submit up to 2 stories, with a combined total of no more than 15,000 words; only one entry per contestant can receive a top 3 prize.
The Romance tag is required for all stories. You can certainly include other genres, as long as it still works as a romance.
The Equestria Girls tag is required for all stories. While stories can feature characters crossing over into Equestria, they cannot solely be about pony characters in the pony world.
The following tags are not allowed, no exceptions: Fetish, Non-consensual, Anthro, Porn, Anon, Self-Insert, Crossover. (And no, “forgetting” to include one of these tags for a story that needs them is not a loophole.)
Be careful with the following tags: Alternate Universe (if you’re using a character with a canon pony counterpart, it needs to be obvious that we’re still dealing specifically with the EqG version; simply being human isn’t necessarily enough), Gore (consider if your story is really an E or T), and OC (your fic can have OCs, but you cannot use an OC as a romantic partner for your eligible character).
No incestuous pairings, no foalcon, and follow the character-age guidance stated in the above paragraphs. (For the purposes of this contest, the Dazzlings are not siblings unless you make them so.)
Judges may not pre-read stories (except to ensure they qualify for the contest) and are advised not to offer public feedback until the contest period has closed.

Special Bonus Prize!

As a reward for making it through our list of rules (which likely won't matter much to you unless you're interested in a rather edge-case story), here's the special prize we mentioned earlier. Since this is the Rainbow Rocks 10th Anniversary, we're offering an additional add-on reward for prizewinning stories that specifically feature Rainbow Rocks character pairings (i.e. ships involving Adagio, Sonata, Bulk, Maud, Octavia, Lavender, Flim, etc.). A top 3 story will get $15 USD added on; a judge pick will get $5 added. All told, this brings the maximum prize pool to over $500 USD. Keep that in mind when choosing your pairings!

That's it!

Please make sure to join our group so that you can follow along with any updates, submit your fics, and see the results!

And if you have any further questions, feel free to ask below! (Judges reserve the right to make any changes to the rules deemed necessary.)

Now go forth, craft your EqG romances, and let us see what this season of love delivers unto us!

The EqG Anniversary Contests (Spring Fling)

EileenSaysHi

32Stories 106Members 2023March

Once again, all fics must be submitted to the contest folder here by 12:01am Eastern Time on August 4. (Meaning the last day is effectively August 3.)

As noted, the final version of these rules will be posted to the group the day the contest formally starts; I'll update these and leave a comment if there's any notable changes (hopefully not).

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