Created this contest thread for the dual purposes of moving the discussion from the group's front page to the forum and notifying group members that the November pairing has been posted.

This month features an optional theme: The Running of the Leaves. Why? Because we couldn't think of anything better to substitute Thanksgiving. But again, this time the theme is optional, so whether you choose to give it a shot is entirely up to you.

And without further ado, the lucky couple:

2077012 Spike and Babs, huh? Interesting...

I'll have to admit that I was originally underwhelmed by this month's pairing for a few personal reasons.

First, shipping Spike with anypony always has the issues of inter-species romance associated with it. Spike's crush on Rarity is one thing when it's nothing more than a crush, but it's another thing entirely when an author tries to "make it work."

Second, there's the age issues. Spike is a "baby" dragon. By D&D rules, he's no longer a juvenile at the age of 51. Not that D&D rules matter much in Equestria, where greed can apparently age a dragon to adulthood pretty quickly. Babs is a juvenile, and there aren't really any rules of Equestrian aging that point to how long it would take for her to reach adulthood either, if one believes the "Granny Smith is 200 years old" theory.

Third, Spike and Babs have never interacted in canon. Spike did appear in both episodes featuring Babs, but he had no speaking lines and was used as a visual gag. Babs not being local to Ponyville also throws a spanner into the works, and Princess Twilight isn't likely to be making Manehattan a regular stomping ground.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I felt compelled to try to find a scenario where these two could be in any way plausible without it being too forced.

One answer jumped out at me pretty quickly. The Manehattanverse.

It's not the perfect scenario, but it gives a setting where Babs and Spike have more opportunity for interaction. It obviously would not be canon, as WoG (Little Jackie Papercut) has stated that Spike is a one-mare dragon (Octavia in this AU). I believe I have a way around that, and could even do it in such a way that it shouldn't irritate too many people.

2089146
I have to agree with the inter-species issue. The aging doesn't bug me, though. If that were an issue, there wouldn't be tons of immortal princessXregular pony ships.

Them never interacting in-show isn't an issue, either. Everyone seems to love the FluttershyXBig Mac pairing, but how often are they even seen together in the same scene?

To be honest, when I drew the BabsXSpike one, I immediately thought of some plausible ideas where they could interact, and realistically. It's turning that interaction into a romance that's the real issue for me.

Although I do have some ideas, at the moment I'm thinking about bowing out of this contest. I feel as if I'm falling behind on my major projects, one of which I was supposed to start weeks ago, and only just started writing the first chapter today! So for now, I'm shifting priorities.

But you never know, I could change my mind a week or two in.

2089146
2089322
Gotta say... I'm a little underwhelmed myself. I've never been the biggest Spike or CMC shipping fan.
Though I am surprised that the prompt didn't involve Trixie. She's in like, half the freaking roulette prompts! Which I think may have something to do with Paulie giving everypony the Trixie equivalent of jungle fever.

And on a unrelated note, is Mallajong still around? He was pretty much the driving force behind Spike-ships for a while, but I haven't seen him in the feature box since Luna knows when.

2118321

That's the weird thing... when everyone was given the opportunity to ship Trixie with anypony, only one person managed to finish their story that month, and she ended up being paired with Luna.

I've got something started for this month. Hopefully I'll be able to see it through.

Another possibility using the Alternate Universe tag would be to go to the Flipside universe where Spike is a pony and Twilight is the dragon. It takes away the species issue, making the romance a little easier, but not the age difference or the "getting them together" difficulty.

2118321 2118414
I was a little surprised by nobody jumping on the Trixie/Whoever option, myself. Trixie's so friggen popular, and only one person wrote on it? Of course, I didn't, either, and it was my contest, but that's only 'cause I was so focused on my TixieXLuna story (which is ongoing).

To be honest, I don't expect a lot of entries for this month. From my understanding of the fandom, Spike's just not a popular character to ship for most people, unless its with Rarity. I'm still thinking about popping one in there, just to pad the number of entries.

2119142

Yeah, my attempt to ship Trixie x Flam fell flat that month.

If you look at the shipping threads, you see a lot of desire for unusual, random, and cracked pairings, but when it comes to actually writing them, the interest seems to dry up. In the meantime, Roseluck x the hentai plant gets featured. By comparison, Cracked Ship's October contest, which just plucked five ponies (Hayseed Turnip Truck, Vinyl Scratch, Trixie, Marble Pie, and Flash Sentry) and said "Ship any Two." They got two entries, the same as this group which restricted to Luna x Fancy Pants.

It's not for a lack of advertising, either, because October's contest was posted in the Lunaverse group.

I think you're right, though. I don't expect a lot of entries. Perhaps it's the "contest" aspect, or the deadline. I don't think it's the pairings necessarily, because even including Trixie month (which was Trixie x Anypony Except Twilight), we've been averaging about three per month (including known attempts).

I wonder if we had some sort of "Regulated Free For All Month," how popular it would be. Set up a chart for the Top Hat (add three ponies to make it an even 20). Make the Cowboy Hat an even 40. Roll a d20 for the Top Hat, roll a d4 and a d10 for the Cowboy. Potential participants roll their own pairings and announce them. Maybe if they don't like the pairing, they can do a Yankee Swap with someone else (it'll be like Christmas!) and make a game out of it.

Just now, I rolled a four, which would be Fluttershy in the Top Hat, and then I rolled a 1 on the d4 which would be the first row, and a 10, so tenth pony = Colgate.

2089146 I don't see it like that. The species issue is only an issue if you want it to be. The same could be said with the age thing. Besides you could always do an AU or maybe Human. Anyway I'm basically new here so mind filling me in on the requirements or limits for this contest?

2119806

These are the Rules for submitting a story into a contest, failure to comply with these will result in disqualification.

1.) No Stories rated higher than Teen, this means no X-rated content, including sexually transgressive or gorey stories. This one is arguably the easiest to follow, because if your story doesn't fit into the teen rating, the FimFic story approvers, will notify you.

2.) No stories written before the date of the contest start. It's not fair to submit a Spike-Babs fic you had six months to work on, when everyone-else only gets a few weeks. The contest start date will always be the 1st of the month.

3.) All submissions must have a minimum length of at least 2000 words. There is no maximum.

4.) No humanized/anthro stories.

5.) No Incest, or foalcon. EX - you cannot make a story about Trixie and Lyra, being sisters or foals. And submit it if we have a Lyra x Trixie contest.

6.) All Stories must be completed upon submission.

7.) No crack/troll fics. Romantic-Comedy is fine, but contest submissions should be meant to be taken seriously.

8.) You can submit a story as soon as you finish it. And you can make it as long as you want it to be. But once you submit it to the submissions folder, you can make no further edits until the conclusion of the contest.

It's rule #5 that brings up the age issue, but since the story's not supposed to be rated higher than Teen anyway, it probably isn't a big deal. And #4 answers the "human/anthro" question.

2119142 Actually Spike shipping is more popular than you think. If this contest gets to the Spike groups than there is a good chance of getting more stories.

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Really? I guess since I never looked for a Spike group, I never saw it. Anyway, I'm a terrible advertiser, but I might take a look around and try do a little at those groups.

But not right now. I'm at my parents, which = crappy computer and crappy nettertubes. I only pop on about once a day to check my alerts while here.

And welcome to the club! You intending to write every now and again, or just watch the words flow? Don't feel bad if you end up not competing, only a handful of people do.

2122622 I might write some stuff but I specialize in Spike fics. Hearing about a contest about BabsXSpike is what got me here in the first place. Anyway their are more Spike groups and shipping than most people would think. You just got to look.

2122782

(Looks at all of the Spike groups) Wow... Spike's got more love than The Writers Group gives him credit for, that's for sure.

If we're advertising in the Spike groups, maybe invade the Babs groups as well.

2122933 Sounds like a plan. If you guys want I can help advertise this contest with some of the groups that would be interested in them. I'm a member of most of the Spike groups to begin with.

2123381

It's all in the interest of inspiring some new, good stories and helping folks become better writers in the process.

(That sounds lame when I type it, but it's true.)

2119399
I totally forgot to mention your Free For All idea. I actually like that a lot, but it's rather hard to police; anybody can just choose a favorite pairing and claim they got it by rolling dice. From that perspective, I'm not so sure.

i had an idea of my own, which involved OC shippings. Not sure how to work it, though.

2123381
Hey, if it'll bring in more contestants, by all means! We're always looking to get some more competition around here. Thanks for the offer!

Also (and I don't know why I didn't notice this before)... is our avatar the hidden boss in KH? I haven't played the game in a veritable eternity, but I swear that's who it reminds me of.

2125069 No problem. I'll start getting the word out. And yes it is, I just photoshop the colors around to make it black instead of white.