Contest Clarifications · 2:32am Jun 26th, 2012
Original Blog Post and Comments
So there were some questions I think I'll answer.
>Does it have to be one couple only?
No. You can ship others too. Hell, if you can figure out a good angle on polyamory that includes one of the pairs, a triple is also fine. Bonus if all three legs are rare ships: Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy? Man, that would take a lot of work to do.
>And does it have to be a oneshot or could it be a series?
>More than one story and more than one chapters are allowed?
Multiple chapters are fine. There is no max length. I think I'll arbitrarily limit this to two fics/person. I would caution everyone that you'll probably fare better if you use extra time to polish your first story than hammer out a second.
>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?
Correct, no, and no. It's a shipping contest, the ponies need to be happily and squishibly in love at the end.
>Wait, so they can't have any feelings for each other before fic starts besides friendship?
They can have feelings. It just needs to be convincing. If Rarity is head over heels for Pinkie, there needs to be a reason for it, and that reason needs to be developed/explained in the story. I'm fine with starting the fic asserting love from one or both, but then the story needs to show why and how and when. Exposition dumps are not as fun as prose, so be careful how you present that information.
>Which bundle?
It's Humble Bundle #5. I don't know which tier it is, I won the code in another contest and don't have time to play the last two bundles.
>Why no ApplePie?
I did a totally scientific search of my gdocs history, eqd, my da groups, fimfiction, and clopssort for ship pairings. There are 15 pairs with the mane 6. I decided to take the five lowest ones. ApplePie wasn't the least popular. If you have a good idea for one, I encourage you to write it, because there isn't a whole lot of it. It's possible my flawless search methods that I came up with in ten seconds flat have led me astray, but those are the pairings for this contest. Regardless of exact placement within the ship-verse, they are a far cry from TwiDash and RariJack in popularity.
>can I also make it adventure comedy?
Yes. Tags other than romance are fine too. It still has to be romance, but an adventure that also ships Rarity and Dash is totally awesome. The only banned tag is AU and the only banned category is Gore. Clop is fine (but I'm after emotion, so you need that too) and I will make sure to indicate E, T, or M when I link everything from the final blog. Since I'm after happy ponies, pulling off sad, tragedy, or dark will take a lot more effort. Those can pay off (See: The Party Hasn't Ended and The Games We Play), but they are a lot rarer.
Some more clarifications that no one has asked yet.
*) No humanization. It's gotta be ponies.
*) You do not have to publish on fimfic, but I'm not signing up for some other site.
*) I'm not going full on EqD grammar/punctuation nazi on this. As long as you do a good enough job that it's not distractingly bad, I'm cool with it.
Submissions:
You have two options
1) Note me on fimfic with a link
2) email me at: kitsuneymg+shipcontest@gmail.com
That +shipcontest is important. I'm on hiatus from pre-reading, but I still get emails. So organization is deathly important. That +shipcontest routes the message to the right tags.
If you don't submit from FimFiction, please give me the name you want attached to the story.
You may note me or email me any questions you have. I'll try to post important ones that come up.
I might read them before the end date, but I'll make sure to re-read them AFTER the end date, so you can submit and tweak if you feel like it. I encourage anyone who finishes early to goto /fic/ or SALT or /r/MyLittleFanfic and get feedback and stuff. I can't review stuff for this, as I lack the time to do a good job of it.
I'll throw up a post ASAP after the end date. Then I'll get reading. I'm going to try to keep y'all posted on my progress. I figured I'd get around 5-6 people responding to this, not half of fimfiction. So I'm going to ask y'all be patient as I work my way through what will probably be a sizable chunk of words.
I plan on trying to at least give an overall impression of what I liked about each fic, but that's now when I have exactly 0 words to read. I'll probably have runner's up/honorable mentions section too.
Well, that answered all of my questions.
Applebloom × Queen Chrysalis
196717 a.deviantart.net/avatars/i/k/ikrplz.png
196708 crysbloom by swiperthefox
Sounds like a plan, Kits. Don't worry, when I'm done you'll wonder why you never thought RariDash was the OTP before.
196821 dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Applebloom_lolface.png dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Queen_Chrysalis.png
Kits,
Just to clarify this part:
>Correct, no, and no. It's a shipping contest, the ponies need to be happily and squishibly in love at the end.
Are you saying that this has to be a happy story? It has to have a happy ending?
I was browsing through FiM, and came across another 'facinating' pairing... sadly Chrysalis isn't mane.
196965
Yes. I'm a selfish bastard and my goals for this are to make myself smile enough that I hurt my jaw. There can be sad elements, but I'm mostly judging based on how real the ship feels and how happy I am. Again, I'll point people at The Party Hasn't Ended and The games We Play. Heck, Only If You Mean It is another example of going through a rough time of things.
This is not a comment on stories with a less than happy ending, this is just my own, personal desire.
197092
I'm not joining in, and yet I am winning (I am a massive sucker for happy fluffy stories.) I like this contest.
>> squishibly in love
You are such a
fagfichead. D:That + operator on gmail is amazing. :O I never knew about that!
197135
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html
You still have to set up a filter, but between dots and plus-addressing each gmail address is actually a whole, huge slew of them.
197186
Now I just need something to use it for! D:
Question-
If I have a good idea for an ApplePie story + another shipping, it would still fit within the rules?
(I adore ApplePie)
199117
As long as "another shipping" is one of the listed 5 pairs, yes. Basically, I did some quick searches for pairings, and took the five least common. ApplePie was #6, surprisingly. Don't let that dissuade you from writing ApplePie; I know a number of people who would like to see more of it.
199137
Perfect...
dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Pinkie_loool.png
I wasn't sure I was gonna do this:
But now that I've got two chapters more or less written and an outline that looks like the story'll be 6 or 7 chapters all told, I guess I am. Even though I haven't played a video game since "Tank" came out in the early 1980s...
Mike
204162
Sweet!
Welcome to the part of the herd with makeouts.
204450
Thank you! Of course, as I've never participated in any actual makeouts myself, I've decided to fill the fic in question with numerous other things I know next to nothing about as well. Just to make it interesting...
Mike Again