Competition » M/M Shipping Contest! 16 Sep - 11 Nov 2021 · 9:21pm Oct 9th, 2021
source: RootsInRivers
Welcome!
Hello friends!
It's time to show some love to the many wonderful male characters we have seen throughout the run of our beloved show, and the G5 movie! And what's the best way to do this? By getting them onboard the S.S. Romance, of course!
So welcome, one and all, to the M/M Shipping Contest! Before November 11, 8PM EDT, your only duty is to take two (or more!) of your favorite stallions (or drakes, or dudes of any species!) to Shiptown. Maybe they're falling in love? Maybe they're saving the world together? Maybe they're facing a tragic separation? In all the forms a story about the love between stallions can take, we are here to celebrate it together.
Oh, and there are a bunch of prizes, too!
source: oniricat
Prizes!
Note that all prize amounts will be sent by PayPal. If you are unable to receive money by PayPal, I, Bicyclette, will try my very best to arrange an alternative that works for you, but please be aware that it may not work out.
Between daOtterGuy and me, Bicyclette, we have a total prize pool of $325!
The top five winners will gain the following in American Dollars:
- First Place: $100
- Second Place: $65
- Third Place: $50
- Fourth Place: $40
- Fifth Place: $30
In addition, each judge will bestow an award of $10 on any entry of their choosing, without any requirements for transparency or fairness. This is completely allowed and legal!
source: heyerika
Judges!
Bicyclette: Gay, and even better yet, tragically gay
will be awarding The Medallion of Melancholy
daOtterGuy: Flash Sentry Himbo Stan
will be awarding The Himbo Crown
mushroompone: Transing Stallions since 2018
will be awarding The Rair Pair Flair
Not Enough Coffee: Bisexual Disaster
will be awarding The Scepter of Indecisiveness
Please keep in mind that judges are not allowed to preread, edit, or discuss any entries with the author before the contest results are released! In addition, judges are asked to withhold commenting on entries until after the release of contest results.
source: JedaySkayVoker
Rules!
- All entries must have their main/primary ship be an M/M pairing (or M/M/M polyship, or M/M/M love triangle, or what have you).
- Stories will be judged on both quality and chemistry. Quality will be about how good the story is overall. Chemistry will be about how good the story is as a story about the relationship between the characters in question.
- The story can be of any genre, not necessarily romance, as long as it prominently features a qualifying ship! Just keep in mind the "chemistry" criterion.
- Stories can be any rating or content, with the following restrictions: Sexual content at the level of a T-rated fic with the Sex tag is definitely allowed. Any sexual content above this level must be story-driven (no mindless pornos!). Extreme content (including fetishes, gore) is not allowed, as all of our judges must be comfortable reading and judging the work. If you think your story might not be appropriate under the spirit of these guidelines, then it probably isn't, but don't be afraid to ask for clarification!
- EqG and G5 characters are allowed.
- R63 of canon female characters is allowed.
- AUs, Crossovers, sequels, and side stories are allowed, provided they work as standalone stories, with no knowledge of other creative works outside of the canon material.
- OCs are allowed, with the same caveat as above.
- The contest will begin on 2000 16/09 UTC-4:00 (8:00PM of September 16th EDT). Stories published before this time will be disqualified.
- The deadline is 2000 11/11 UTC-4:00 (8:00PM of November 11 EDT). Stories must be published and completed by this time in order to qualify.
- There is no minimum wordcount, but the maximum is 20kw. If you feel this is too restrictive, please contact me, Bicyclette, to discuss a possible exception.
- You may submit as many fics as you want to the contest! However, each person may only win one prize.
- If you are a new writer and your entry ends up stuck in the moderation queue, please contact me, Bicyclette, to avoid being disqualified for this.
- Submissions will be collected in the M/M Shipping Contest Submissions folder. Feel free to join the group and place it in yourself!
- If you feel like your idea is borderline to any of these rules, or think that despite technically meeting all these rules might go against what we might reasonably expect from a good-faith entry, or if you have any questions or want to clarify anything, please don't be afraid to discuss it with me, Bicyclette! The last thing we want is for you to spend a lot of time working on an entry and then have it not qualify at the end. We understand there will always be corner cases to consider.
- For legal and job reasons of myself, any submission under the same account as fics that would be illegal to publish in the nation of Australia (a certain subset of pornographic material) are disqualified. This is the only requirement based on factors outside of the actual submission itself.
source: DingoBreath
That's it!
Good luck!
source: scarletlightning565
I’m glad for this, but, idk… why is it I can find righting lesbian characters easier to write than male x male? Am I the only one? God I hope this doesn’t mean I’m homophobic when I’m honestly not/that something is wrong with me because of that! >.>
5593698
Not everyone can write everything with equal skill. Don't worry about it. Practice helps.
5593698
I’m sure your not homophobic. Don’t worry. I think much of it comes down to the dynamics of the sexes. Two women together has a different, maybe more emotional feel than with two guys doing it. But that may just be me, too. Like, a lesbian couple has a lighter “vanilla” tone while a gay couple has a “muskier” vibe. Musky in a good way. I don’t blue if that makes sense, though.
Oof, tight deadline, but very tempting...
5593698
it's not at all homophobic to find it harder to write M/M ships! if it is something you want to try out i do encourage it and would be glad to read whatever you write, but you should never feel any obligation to write any type of story in particular
5593716
ah, i was hoping a month would be enough time, but i do hope you make it!
5593747
Yeah, that's absolutely a "me" problem - I'm slow and constantly working on half a dozen projects simultaneously.
I hope I can sneak something in, though!
5593698
This is why I wanna do this one.
For the practice.
I am utterly excited to see the content generated from this contest.
Don’t say anything…
Remember your karma…
I can't help but notice a couple things:
1) Bicyclette is running multiple contests at the same time. While noble, it's also ambitious, probably unnecessarily so.
2) For the 26 entry StarTrixMaud contest, it took over a month for contest results to come out. That's not too bad for one contest, but if Bicyclette is running two contests at once, I can't help but feel contestants are going to be waiting way too long. That doesn't seem especially considerate.
5593989
I'm only responding because I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from entering this contest due to this post, so I will clarify things.
1. The StarTrixMaud contest was extended and actually ended on Sep 16, with results coming out on Oct 07, so three weeks. I was late and inefficient in announcing the target date (posted as part of a personal blog on Sep 23), but lessons learned. The results would actually have come out about a week earlier if I had been reading stories throughout instead of waiting until the end, but lessons learned there too, ones I've passed on to the new judges in this contest. In any case, I only ever received one message from an author about how the judging was going, and If any other author felt that I was inconsiderate, it was never made known to me.
2. The other contest has its end date two weeks before this one for a reason. I expect far fewer entries for it, and the overlap in workload will be minimal regardless.
3. I must admit, the "doesn't seem especially considerate" part does wound me personally, because I actually put a lot of effort into the institutions I run to make them a pleasant experience for the participants. I aimed to leave a quality comment on every single one of the StarTrixMaud entries, and this has been very much appreciated by winners and non-winners alike (though I still owe a few on the longer ones, I let the results getting out take priority over completing this task).
4. You have my Discord. If you had concerns, couldn't you have talked to me privately? I honestly don't understand the purpose of this public comment in this thread. Could you please enlighten me?
5594030
That sounds good to me. Hope those lessons pay off!
I don't know how else to put it, though. How else is a potential entrant supposed to look at the situation as anything but apparently inconsiderate? These are your second and third contests ever, and there were some self-admitted hiccups in the first. While I have confidence that you learned the right lessons from those hiccups, adding the hurdle of doing your second and third contests simultaneously seems a bit much.
As both of your concurrent contests were advertised via site blogs, I'm expressing my concerns, both to you and staff.
5594043
Thank you for your concern, however, I am confident in my ability to finish the results in a timely manner with an estimate of 2 weeks past the deadline of the Sunset x Sunset contest and 3 weeks for this contest.
Also, to assure any possible current or future contestants, these contests take priority for me over any other fandom activities such as writing my own work and reading outside of contest obligations. I hope that the success of the StarTrixMaud Contest results and the upcoming successes of these two contests will be enough to allay any concerns you or others may have.
Thank you for your time.
5594030
Results within 3 weeks is extremely reasonable. Heck, even a month ain't bad.
Didn't manage to enter the StarTrixMaud contest, but it seemed to run pretty smoothly from the outside. Looking forward to finishing my entry for this contest!
If the story is entirely OCs, is it still eligible?
A friend pointed me to this. I... haven't written in a really long time. It would feel good to write again, though. Seeing this competition is frankly heartwarming. I'd even go so far as to say it means a lot to me, odd as that might sound to say of a contest.
I may not be able to get something done in time to participate, but the fact it got me wanting to write is in itself something... I'm really grateful for. It made me realize just how much I miss it.
Regardless of whether I get to participate, I will be working on another story. That will be a personal win, for me. I hope everyone has fun with this and enjoys coming up with stories to post!
5594768
really looking forward to it!
5595532
yep! as long as it works as a standalone FiMFic-eligible story
5595670
aww, that is really great to hear, thank you so much! best of luck on your writing, for this contest or otherwise!
Sounds fun! Now if only I had a good idea...
can i use a fe-male character??
derpicdn.net/img/view/2021/10/5/2717119.jpg
What a great idea for a contest! From someone who's been writing gay pony fanfic since all the way back in 2011, I wish there had been more events and fandom activities like this back then! And hello to 5595670 I haven't seen your name in a long time either!
Best of luck to the organizers and to everyone who enters!
I'm pretty sure this isn't going to affect me, but I'm still curious just what this 'certain subset' is, uniquely banned (so not elsewhere?) in Australia, and just googling it isn't giving me a straight enough answer.
5596726
It has been a long time! And it's good to see a familiar face from 'way back when'!
OK, entered! Not my best work, but something short and cute, and I had fun writing it.
Ha ha, for being a site for a fandom about a show about learning friendship and tolerance, this site is surprisingly hostile to M/M ships of any kind, while at the same time not being able to get enough F/F.
pbs.twimg.com/media/Duv4BzeWwAANpwt.jpg
Thanks for a contest dedicated to the subject, but sorry for all the backlash I'm sure you're getting...
Hello, I was trying to reply to your DM, but I kept getting a 'Server Error' popping up each time I tried to send it, so I'll post here instead. Feel free to reply in the DM instead of on here, though, if you prefer.
My question is: may I please ask specifically what the Australian law is that my account is breaking that disqualifies me from this contest?
5593707
Your comment got so many downvotes
Personally, I think it's because what you wrote can sound strikingly sexist (and homophobic); at the same time, no less!
Really invoking the "Angel Dust" approach to efficiency here, if I do say so myself
*pft* I'm clearly fucking with you; but no really, you sound a little blind to the subject matter.
...seriously "vanilla" and "muskier?"
5596883
5604391
Stories by LegionofPony - Fimfiction
(I removed the hyperlink for OP's peace of mind)
Probably related comments. Though after a month I expect that you already knew that.
Edit: 2wks and 3 downvotes later, and I'm wondering why y'all so butthurt over an educated guess
Huh, the comment section is only half a shitstorm. I'm proud of how far we've come along.
5606273
*musky bara Chad voice* Yes.