In the wake of a failed contest on this group, I'm going to try to do one myself, as I feel contests CAN be done right and drum up more than enough member support.

In honor of the upcoming holidays for both Canada and the US, the theme for the content is:

FIREWORKS

You can write any story you want, as long as fireworks are involved in a big way. Special occasions, the actual object used in some shape or form, a reference to that one song I rather detest. Even used as a metaphor. Either physically present or referenced in some way, it has to be a big thing in the story. If the story doesn't have enough of the topic to qualify, or doesn't have it at all, by the contest deadline, I will fail the submission. With that said, I will notify you if you don't have enough "Fireworks" in your story if you submit before the deadline, just to give you enough of a chance to maybe retool it so that you do.

The contest will start once this thread has been posted, and will end July 7th. If there are late entrees, contact me at LEAST 1 week before July 7th, and I will consider extending the deadline.

I will be the judge of every story presented. Furthermore, because this is unofficial, and there will be no group submissions, it is crucial that you submit your entrees via PMs to me, linking to the story. Simply title the message as "Contest Entry", and provide the link. Anything further will be just frosting.

Because I will be acting as judge, it may take me some time to read each entry and decide winners, so I must request you to be patient on that.

The top three winners will receive FREE DRAWINGS OF THEIR CHOICE from me, because that's the most I can provide. Here's an example of recent artwork I've done.

1st Place will get a fully detailed, shaded, and cleaned character pic.
2nd Place will get a detailed and shaded character pic.
3rd Place will get a line-art only character pic.

(I apologize to all contestants, but I do not do color or backgrounds. I'm just not good enough at them, and would take me even longer to do)

RULES:

1. NO MATURE RATED FICS

The highest I am allowing is teen (even though I personally like M rated content, 'cept clop). Please don't go too over the top as you keep this in mind.

2. OCs ARE ALLOWED, HOWEVER...

You can only use ONE OC in the story. I'd much rather prefer you to use characters from the show, but I won't outright restrict you. Please, however, treat the OC as you would treat any character you are introducing for the first time. Just because you know YOUR OC (or any OC for that matter), doesn't mean anyone/everyone else will.

3. STORY LENGTH MUST BE AT LEAST 2000 WORDS LONG

This is mostly to help incentivize you, the contestants, to put in a decent amount of effort in your story, not that I doubt that you will. However, It is imperative that you keep the story a one-shot. If you wish to continue it after the contest, go right ahead. On that note...

4. NO PRE-EXISTING STORIES

These stories must be written as of reading this post. Nothing prior to this contest will be accepted. As judge, I WILL BE CHECKING.

If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask me either here, or PM me. I will try to provide any answers you may need.

4441770
You may proceed. And for the heck of it, I'll make you an admin. It's getting lonely.

4441797 Oooh... uhm... as long as I don't have to do anything too major. Reading and critiquing fics, even for a contest, is relativly easy, as I can do that along with my personal written and art projects. I don't know how often I'd be around, but I do know I'll be posting on this thread at least once a week to make sure people know about the contest and that the deadline is July 7th.

4441818
You can be the official contest organizer since the rest of us didn't know what we were doing.

Welcome aboard the ship.

4441827 Fair enough. I accept.

But, really, organizing a contest isn't that complex. Keep it concise, open, and contestant friendly. That, and promote it as much as you can, including updates and advertisement threads. I'll do what I can on that front, but try to keep the things I have and will be demonstraiting in mind whenever you want to host another contest.

4441770 As with all the contests on Fimfiction, I'll be promoting this one on my user page in attempt to get you more contenders. Good luck!

4441885 Thank you very much.

4441770 Oh boy! I just came up with a fantastic idea for this one.

...

Um, quick question. Even if it's for the contest, we're still allowed to submit it to this group, right?

4456603 Sure. Submit whatever stories to the group as long as you follow the guidelines.

But, yeah, to qualify as a proper contest submission, send me a link to your story via PM

Allright, I'll give this a shot... been a while since I've written something short.

Hopefully we can get a ball rolling here... I've been away far too long with military stuff... felt bad for not contributing more.