Contest and a Prize · 11:55pm Jun 23rd, 2012
So I find myself in possession of a humble bundle key. Now, I love playing games and stuff, but I still haven't finished Portal 2. Take note: this is what having kids does to you. So I figure I may as well try to get something I can enjoy out of it while hopefully getting someone else fired up, so I'm having a contest!
What kind of contest? A fic writing contest.
"But kits! That's so unoriginal!"
Wait, there's more. This is not just any fic writing contest, it's a shipping contest. A shipping contest involving rare ships. That's right. As much as TwiDash and PinkieDash and Rarijack et al are awesome, I want to see some less common pairs!
The Rules:
1) A completed story that goes through the initial "falling in love" period. No being a sneaky cheater by having them already in love. That's a fine story, but not what I'm after.
2) The story has to be one of the ships listed below.
3) You shouldn't use another story as a starting point, but you can set it in the future.
4) The point is to ship canon characters, so no AU or otherwise buggering the world to make it simpler.
5) I have no min or max length, but I doubt it can be done in less than around 5,000 words.
6) You can publish where ever (I expect FimFic, but am not picky), but make sure to send me a PM with a link so I can read it!
7) Yeah. No cheating and using an already written story.
Tags: Obviously, it need to be [Romance]. It can have other tags (except Gore warnings. I won't even read it.) and can be as innocent or steamy/sexy/cloppy as you wish. I'm the guy judging it and I tend to like happy ponies, so unless you pull something like The Games We Play or The Party Hasn't Ended, [dark] probably won't net you much :P
Due Date? Let's go with 23:59, July 28st (US Central time)—five weeks.
I'm going to mainly judge on how "real" the characters feel and how much I smile. Grammar and stuff take second fiddle to that, because honestly, grammar is easy enough to fix later. It still needs to be readable. I don't care if you get outside help! I don't care if multiple people work on something (though I only have the one code).
The possible pony pairings! There's five of 'em.
Rarity x Rainbow Dash
Twilight x Applejack
Fluttershy x Pinkie
Applejack x Fluttershy
Rarity x Pinkie
History with running prompts like this has shown me that I'll get a trickle of fics in and then flooded at the last second. So it may take a few days for me to finish reading and decide. Or everyone could ignore me and I'll cry in a corner. Either one.
I'm totally hoping that the challenge of doing one of the, presumably, harder ships and the chance to claim a bit of fame draws people in too. Feel free to tell others.
d'oh. No OC/Dash
Sorry, won't be entering this one.
So, wait, ignoring you and letting you cry in a corner is an option? Hm. Tough call...
....I'll probably do it...
Depending on my time between this site social life, Skyrim and the story that I'm working on now.
192202
Writing terrible, horrible, all around bad shipping isn't normal
But on OC x Mane it is
OC x Mane: not even once
192206
It is. I even have ice cream already.
192210
>social life
i.neoseeker.com/mgv/574321-Liege/321/91/130615168634_display.jpg
192214 Honestly though, I already have the idea for a perfectly reasonable FlutterPie story in my head. But I SHOULD write more of Somepony. My dumb brain doesn't want to think about that right now, though. C'mon, brain...
When you said rare I thought you meant something completely bonkers and unexpected. Like Blueblood x Zecora or Thunderlane x Luna. Those are rare. Shipping the mane 6 should prove interesting though, but I have questions: does it have to be one couple only? And does it have to be a oneshot or could it be a series?
>July 28st
Now that's a new one. Well, I'll definitely keep an eye on this for SparkleJack and RariPie, assuming people post the links tho their stories as comments here.
oh cool the due date is on my birthday
192216
That is a sexy Display Picture.
192214
What?
192235
What is a "social life"? (it's a bad joke)
Sounds interesting, I wonder what comes out of it. Looking forward to it. No I will not participate in this event.
Rarity x Pinkie is the only one of those I consider uncommon.
192240 agreed, I can't at least wait to read what comes out of this. The reason I wanted to do OCxDash is because I already had one started, and I'm not that good at using Pinkie
Fluttershy
or Applejack
I might just give a raridash fic a shot though...I'll let you know in case I decide to enter one.
keep up all of your totally superultraawesomextremazing work up
192237
Now I get it sorry. Im a little slow.
192216
i.imgur.com/lNz6B.jpg
192248
From what I found when doing searches today, those are the bottom 1/3rd of intra-six ships.
192248
>Raridash isnt' uncommon
Except for the three that are on EqD because a single group submitted them... they're all pretty rare still.
Kits said he used something to determine which had fewest ships. He says that even Applepie has more than these.
192250 And thats how Equestria got laid,,,,wait what, no~ Ehm what I wanted to say is:
Dis gonna be good dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Twilight_Sparkle_lolface.png
192263 best line I've heard all day
Oh um can It be multible chapters or just one?
192253
If I participated (which I won't because shipping and because I suck) I would write what happened with Pinkie and Rarity after the end of "The Last Roundup".
192216 OH SHI-
I was gonna enter, but I can already see I don't stand a chance.
...
5 weeks? Ahhh, buck it. I'll try anyhow.
scranton.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1835-131966125415.png
Don't worry, Kits, your RariDash ship will be hurriedly sent to you in a PM when I do it the day before the due date.
Needless to say, I will be winrar.
192237 What's a social life? Is it edible? Where can I buy one?
Only one possibility to write about Rainbow Dash
! (before you ask why that matters, look at my username). I suppose the rest of the ships with the Mane 6 would be too common... AppleDash, TwiDash, Rainbow Pie (because every Pinkie ship has to be a kind of food, forget the name Pinkie Dash), and FlutterDash are all too common. Face it, everypony. Everyone ships Dash because she's best pony, i.e. she's the best to ship. Alas though, i don't want to start a flame war about best pony here. Just know that I will blow you away with how awesome my RariDash story shall be. 
That's what I say right now. We'll see.
192260
EQD hosts like 1% of the ponyfic out there. If there are 3 on EQD, I don't consider that uncommon.
192267 Haha, glad I got a laugh out of you. I actually got that line from "Beating the Heat" 'cause it works so well..... dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Twilight_Sparkle_lolface.png
192270
Either. There's not a length restriction.
192260
I searched the various shipping groups here and on DA and counted fics. I don't know which pairs have more good fics, just which have more. Maybe I should have added EqD stuff, but searching EqD sucks.
192258
Yeah, those pairings. I'm not all that interested in the bg characters all that much.
192271
Donny's Boy did something similar to that.
Cool. I can't write to save my life, but hopefully a few good RariDash fics will come out of this. I can't remember ever finding one of those that was/looked any good.
192258 192275 Oh god you're right. I wasn't really paying attention to who posted that. Don't worry, my comrade! This is the perfect chance for us to make a name for ourselves, by defeating another well known pony fanatic we can display our power!
The storyboarding starts tonight.
images.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/10398103.jpg
192287 I got you, my homie. Just wait. DiBP is on the case.
>inb4 kits has half a million words to read
192288 The three of us should team up.
Screw the prize (whatever it is, I hadn't seen), gimmie the fame!
192291
192292 Perhaps, I'm a bit of a lone wolf though, I'll be honest. I'm open to the idea I guess, I just wanna make sure if we work together it's not a fluke.
Hmm... nah. I can't ship. I only read stuff.
192292 But that sounded mean. Like I said, I'm totally open to the idea. I suppose I'm just skeptical. The process is longer and more complex if we're working together, and I don't know if we wanna deal with that.
192296 I know right? Shipping is good, sometimes awkward, but good nonetheless. I look forward to anything.
192300
dash.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/132625092880.jpg
192298 Well, have you ever read "Remorse: Color of Crimson"? I'm a friend of the author, and I'm really the rubber wall he bounces ideas off of, and sometimes I throw in an idea that's completely brilliant, and we add it in. In my Skype group, I go by the name of "Mac: The Editor".
... Or I did until I got bored and changed it to "Mac the PC".
But... Waaaay off topic, there. If you wanna partner up, that'd be awesome! If you got an account that you can use GDocs with, PM me a link to a doc, and we can bat ideas back and forth.
I'm in the middle of cleaning my room, as well, so I might not always respond. If you got Skype, that'd be better for me at this specific moment.
So the end result is that they have to be in love by the end? It can't be a fling and they decide it won't work out or even a self destructive relationship? Because I've read several fics that did that pretty well.
192304 No, not ALL the ponies, for example TwilightxRarity, eh no...NO! It just doesn't work....TwilightxRainbowDash oh yeahhhh~
Something like that.
Pinkie and AJ works, too, kinda. Rarity and Celestia is fine. Luna and Fluttershy, 'cause they're both shy and socially awkward.
Anyway, Equestria got laid anyways so, have fun with anything. Looking forward to anything, feel free to suggest and all that good stuff.
Kits, just a suggestion to the fans. after the links are sent... share it with us too! Sadly, I'm no writer so I can't (read won't try) join in on the fun. To all the competetors, Good luck, and have fun writing those stories! If you ain't having fun writing it, I highly doubt it's be an awesome read >.>
192311
They have to fall in love, yes. Self destruction and/or relationships falling apart don't make me smile. Bad stuff can happen, but what I personally want is happy endings. I know fics like you describe work, but they're not what this contest is for.
192323 Understood. Well, I'm not going to do this contest anyway. I'm not good enough of a writer yet for a pair like one of those.
192316
Oh, I plan on posting a link to every story that follows the rules in my winner-post. If there are enough of them, I might even acquire better/more prizes.
Wait, so they can't have any feelings for each other before fic starts besides friendship?
192334
They can have feelings, they just can't have acted on them overtly. If you can explain why they have feelings and how they can act the way they do in the show instead of acting on them, that's fine.
For instance, something like "One Night in Manehatten" would be out: while I love the fic, Pinkie and Dash are already an item. While something similar to Rainbow Dash's Best Plan Ever can be made to work. PinkieDash is rather easy in that regard, there's a lot of room for feelings that neither has acted on. Something like Rarity x Dash requires a lot more development, IMO, before it's believable.
They thing I don't want is a confession-fic. The kind of fic where $A likes $B and spends 2000 words angsting about it, then confesses and SURPRISE, feelings returned. I want to see where those feelings come from. Ideally, they'd start as friends, but this is a fairly short time frame for something like that.
Starting with romantic interest and/or lust is fine, if you can show where it comes from. This development of feelings is what I am really after. I doubt it would work very well if you just had Dash hardcore crushing on Rarity. A latent interest or mild crush could be fine. I guess it boils down to this: convince me they're in love. Convince me the feelings sprang from the setup that is MLP:FiM.
Aw, no FlutterDash. I might still enter maybe. Question, though. Which bundle?
192258
192275
Oh, I'm entering just for fun.
I don't play video-games any more (last thing I played was Final Fantasy X-2), so even if I did win (ha! I've never won a thing in my life 
) the prize would be wasted on me.
I think I'll do RariPie.
I did one way back at the start of 2011 (it was humanised though).
Alright, I'll give it a try. I guess that means I'm doing Twilight x Applejack because Twilight.