Poniverse Mascot Summerpalooza 2.0 Contest!!!

Well then, now that I have your attention, let's begin! Anyways, the Poniverse Fimfiction group (which you can find and join by clicking here if you haven't already) has not been very active in quite some time, and we at Poniverse are dead-set on fixing that. As such, we've decided to launch as our next fanfiction contest, Poniverse Mascot Summerpalooza 2.0!!! Yes, once again we will have a fanfiction contest centered around the lovely mascots of Poniverse in which you will have the opportunity to leave your mark on Poniverse canon, only this time we actually have some canon established for them already for you guys to reference and look up in the course of writing! Below you will find all the rules you need to know:

(1) Entries submitted to this contest must feature one or more of the Poniverse Mascots (Pixel Wavelength, Buffy, Viola, Viridian Meadows, Nova Blast, Wordplay (and twin sister Fair Dice and older brother Road Map), and our newest mascot, Azura Peavielle) in a starring role. Stories may fall into any genre and cover any subject the author desires, but in order to qualify as eligible for Poniverse canon, must fit into already existing canon. Existing canon may be found here in the Poniverse Mascot Canon folder and here on the Poniverse Networks Tumblr. But aside from that, go crazy and have fun! Be it a silly slice-of-life story to tell about one or more of the mascots, or a rollicking adventure, or a romance, or whatever, go for it! Whatever the fic, we will accept and judge it, so long as it features these characters. Now, in addition to canon for these characters that already exists, our staff has put together personality profiles for each character, which you will find below. These profiles do not provide background information about specific events or anything in these mascots lives, just some information about their personality traits and characteristics. You don't even have to follow them to the letter if you don't want to, but preference will be given in judging to fics that more closely follow these profiles. If you have any questions about something you'd like to do with a character, feel free to PM me or another member of our staff about it.

Disclaimer: As these mascots are intellectual property of Poniverse.net, judges reserve the right to ask for minor content changes from submissions from finalists.

Poniverse Mascot Profiles

Pixel Wavelength: Pixel Wavelength, Poniverse's overall, benevolent alicorn OC mascot, is a complete and total sweetheart: generous to the core, friendly as heck, super motherly as well. She's that friend you can call at 3am in the morning crying and she'll come to your house with food and a hug. She's pretty naive, though. She's also not very adventurous, preferring to stay home and work on creating better technology. She's a bit of a 'mad' scientist, you could say, in the same vein as Twilight. She's very scientific, certainly. She wants to make the Equestrian version of a computer that can work with all species of pony! In fact, within our own crazy Poniverse canon where computers apparently exist in Equestria, she also happens to be the Princess of the Internet, something I'm sure ya'll could do some very fun stuff with in your writing.

Buffy: MLP Forums' mascot, Buffy is an absolute bundle of fun. She was based off of Shift, who designed her. So she will sometimes speak in CAPS LIKE THIS. Kind, adoring, would do anything for a friend. She's not really a voice of wisdom by any means, but she still gives her opinion anyway. She's a blabbermouth, and loves to chat (since, you know, forums and all!). She's a huge fan of watching shows and getting into heavy (but friendly) debates about them with the ponies around town. On a sadder note, she tends to feel lonely quite often, which is a big reason why she makes her voice so loud. She wants to be heard, to feel important and noticed.

Viola: Pony.fm's mascot is an uptight musician, who specializes in violins. She is quite the social luminary, and comes from a family full of musically talented ponies. She has a personality and exhibits mannerisms in the same vein as Rarity, including the manner in which she speaks. She is a bit snobbish when it comes to ponies trying to befriend her, but outside of her tough (seemingly mean at times) exterior is quite the caring pony. She is loyal to her friends to the very core. She's definitely the straight man of the mascots - rolling her eyes at puns and boorish or uncouth behavior. Still, she's always willing to help out her friends and give them advice. She's quite good at it!

Viridian Meadows: Equestria.tv's mascot loves to gather her friends up for late night movies. She loves to crack puns and jokes (much to Viola's dismay at times), and is very much the jokester of the group. She can be quite the sassy pony too; quick with comebacks and always the one to break the silence. She's very confident and sure of herself. Sometimes, she run her mouth and fail to be careful in what she says, and that can be a bit of an issue. She's a budding filmmaker.

Nova Blast: PoniArcade's mascot, Nova Blast was named after his parent's favorite arcade machine. Nova Blast was raised by video games - he practically lives and breathes them. Especially as a video game creator. Despite this, he was never a 'nerd.' Like Viridian, he's cool and confident. Suave. The one who has a group of mares and stallions swooning over him. Nova tries to think of himself as this too cool to touch dude, but he's very much a dork at heart. He loves his friends to the core, even if he doesn't always show it. He's not one for hugs or 'I love yous,' but he does care a lot. He just has some trouble expressing himself.

Wordplay: Leave it to the roleplayers/world-builders to have most a story for him. Pony Roleplay's mascot Wordplay is actually the only mascot with siblings, an older brother named Road Map and a younger sister named Fair Dice. Wordplay is a bit shy, but is a strong writer and D&D player. He is the quietest among his friends, but don't think lightly of him; he has a very sharp tongue, and can get irritated easily. He's a perfectionist, and has a bit of trouble when it comes to sharing. He also happens to be a colt-cuddler (for those of you not in the know, that means he prefers stallions over mares), and we do ask that this trait of his not be changed, though it is not, I repeat, NOT necessary to bring it up in any fic about him, and the same can be said as far as any of the mascots love-lives or sexual preferences are concerned.

Wordplay is the stallion depicted in the various artworks, and is the storyteller and RPer of the family. Fair Dice is his fractionally younger twin sister, and is far more interested in the mechanical aspects of RPs, with resolution systems, min/maxing, and so on. The little-seen Road Map is the much older brother who spends his time in the basement running massive, overenthusastic wargame scenarios such as the War of the Sun and Moon, or the Fall of the Crystal Empire. And painting all those miniatures. Can't use unpainted miniatures, you know! That would ruin the experience.

Azura Peavielle: Our newest member of the Poniverse Mascot family is none other than Azura Peavielle (the mare on the right in the above pic), Ponyvillelive's mascot designed by none other than Petirep himself of Rainbow Dash Presents fame. Ponyvillelive, as you may or may not know, is the network of brony radio stations, and one of the more recent additions to the Poniverse family. So it can be assumed that Azura's special talent or job is tied into radio work somehow; for example, perhaps she's a DJ! But the good news with Azura is that, unlike our other mascots, she has barely any canon to speak of. She's got her cutie mark, her design, and some appearances in our Tumblr, but that's about it. So writers can especially go crazy with Azura and come up with all sorts of stories for her; be it an origin story, how she came to work with Poniverse, or something else entirely, be our guest and go for it! We just want to get something of a canon story, background, and character established for our lovely little Azura.

(2) Entries should be no longer than 30,000 words. We'd prefer that all entries be one-shot fics, but if the author requires multiple chapters for their fic, that's fine, so long as the fic does not exceed 30,000 words and is complete upon entry.

(3) Entries cannot exceed a Teen rating. We will not accept any Mature rated fics, whether they be Gore fics, Slash fics, Clop fics, etc. That's not to say that you can't enter scary fics, but our group has a strict policy of not accepting Mature rated fics. If any Mature rated fics are entered, we will not read or review them.

(4) Fics can be submitted to the contest in the folder titled Mascot Summerpalooza 2.0 Contest Entries.

(5) Contestants can enter no more than 1 submission of their own work (and please, do not enter any other author's work into the contest, even if you're doing it for them; if they'd like to enter the contest, they can do so themselves).

(6) Entries will be accepted until Friday, August 5, 2016; after that date, we will accept no new submissions.

We hope to announce the contest winners in the middle or towards the end of August, although that time-slot may change depending on whatever real life demands may arise in the next month. Unlike our usual 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place format, winning entries will be selected based on the best fic for each of the respective mascots. Don't let that stop you from using multiple mascots in a fic, cause if a fic's well-written enough, there's certainly no reason it couldn't qualify as the best fic about 2 or more of the mascots. Just do whatever you feel is most manageable. Once the winning entries have been selected, special prize art commissions will be awarded to those writers of the best entries for each respective character; you will find additional details about these art commissions below. In addition, as usual, all winning entries will be featured on MLP Forums, our Fimfiction group, and in the next Poniverse newsletter, along with reviews published for each one. Finally, and perhaps most exciting of all, the winning entries for each mascot will be accepted as official Poniverse canon for these characters.

We hope you all enjoy this contest as much as the last one, and hope to see some wonderful entries that help us to celebrate summer and continue to expand Poniverse! So get to it writers, and show us what you've got up your sleeves! I'm sure many of you have some very interesting stories in mind for each of these characters, and can't wait to see your ideas in action. If you have any questions about the contest, do not hesitate to post them here or to PM me, and feel free to share this contest prompt with any friends of yours here on MLP Forums, Fimfiction, or any other pony site you can think of! Have a pleasant day, everypony, and happy writing one and all!

Art Commission Prizes

Seven winners maximum (one for each mascot, although it is possible for peopl to win for more than one mascot) will receive free art commissions; these pieces will be 1-2 character full art pieces with a basic background, and may be whatever the winners desire, whether it be cover art for a fic, or just art of an OC. The following artists will work on these commissions: Sadatrix, Core-MLP, Numzie, icyfire888, ButteredRoses, Tyzain, and Tinkk611. Be sure to check out their art and DA profiles by clicking on their names! Once again, have a wonderful day everypony, and best of luck one and all!