Hello. Remember me saying that we'd have a contest up soon?

Well, we do! We now have 100 members, which is a sizeable enough bunch to attempt a contest. It's not a contest idea I've seen done anywhere else, and frankly, it might be the only one to my knowledge. There might not be another one of this kind for years to come.

The focus of this contest is: anachronism. From ye olde wikipedia:

Anachronism: a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of person(s), events, objects, or customs from different periods of time.

It's pretty rare to see anachronistic stories... on this site, and everywhere else. The most we see are flashbacks, and examples of hardcore anachronism is like finding a pancake in your cupboard. It could happen, but it's rare. This is a damn shame, because some of the most fun things ever are anachronistic, or have fun with playing around with the timeline. Pulp Fiction is famously anachronistic. So are two of my favourite shows ever, Durarara! and Baccano. MLP fanfiction should have it's own brand of timeline defying, confusing to follow stories. That's where we come in.

-Your deadline is the 1st of September. By that, I mean that when August ends, so does the contest.

-The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stories will be featured and advertised on this group, my blog, and I'll make a special post on the Shameless Self Promotion Bureau just for you guys. I will also personally review each and every one, which will be featured on my blog, getting the word out to as many people as possible. Advertisement is the best prize we have, but I'm sure I'll be able to charm at least a dozen or so people into giving your story a read, I promise.

-I will read and comment meaningfully on each entry.

-As an additional prize, the winning story author can request a story from me, and I will do my best to write it (Scotsmans honour). I typically only write short-ish stories, but those are things that can be arranged later.

-Submit stories to the folder we will set up in our Contest folder. If you have any problems, PM me.

-The judges will be myself, Edgy McEdgerson, and Verbose Mode. We all have experience either reviewing, writing, or organizing contests, so you can trust us. Y'know. If you want to.

-There is no story word limit. There are no restrictions on whether your story is SFW or not. Incomplete stories are acceptable. Bear in mind that if you try writing a huge multi-chapter epic, and cannot finish it before the deadline, that will stand against you. It is harder to judge incomplete stories.

-The story must be published after this contest post was put online.

-If I forget something, I'll be sure to edit my post.

Just in case, I took the liberty of including a few ideas (which you are at liberty to take if so you wish):

Two ponies are getting married (AppleDash for extra points) and a group of guests who have never met each other before and will never meet each other again are sat at the same table. They begin talking, and discuss how each of them knows the couple... and slowly piece together how the two of them fell in love.

History is surprisingly long, but honestly that's only a matter of perspective. The adventures of Doctor Whooves from the point of view of a couple of ponies separated by hundreds of years.

Rainbow Dash wakes up... and she's drank too much cider again. As she stumbles back home, little things along the way remind her, piece by piece, of what exactly happened the night before.

We understand that this may not be easy for a lot of you... but if it was easy, there'd be no point in trying it. As a personal favour to me, please feel free to promote this contest wherever you can. The more people participate, the more worthwhile it will be when you win.

Good luck! PM me with questions!

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Question, what if I already have a story published with a full anachronistic chapter?

4589853 Well, first: It'd be nice if it was more than just a chapter. Second, let's go with new stories only, shall we? More fun to be had that way.

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Gotcha.

4589792 If I can get it done I'll totally not write AppleDash

Alright Pudgy. You got this.

4589792 At last is the time to show off my skills.

This contest should give me a great number of thrills.

Tee

Hee!

More writing for me!

4589792 Oh my god. I'm just gonna sit back and watch this one unless somthing really amazing hits me.

So.........We need to write a pony version of pulp fiction?

Probably not, but I'll do my best! Thanks for the story ideas! They helped me get the ball rolling!

Can't wait to see what you can come up with!
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4591654 I honestly don't know why you'd want that. Getting hit in any circumstance, regardless of whether what hit you was amazing or not, is typically pretty painful.

4597830 There's loads more than PF that's anachronistic (although it is my go-to example).

Use of Weapons by Banks uses anachronism and switches between past and present. Batman Begins also uses a fair bit of switching between kidBruce and BatBruce. And of course, two of my favourite anime ever, Durarara! and Baccano, are highly anachronistic.

4597947 I... will let you have that.
I might have an idea. We will see.

4597943 Prepare yourself now to see the ultimate show!

Of whimsey and magic and stuff like that...so...

Is it okay if I write something crazy?

LIke sentient sandwiches made by Trixie?

4598055 Crazy is not simply allowed. It is encouraged.

I like to call crazy 'alternate sanity'.

4598194 Well, I see no reason why I should have any fear.

For I see now there is no problem here.

Just finished writing one for this contest today, but am afraid of being the first one in the submission folder. >_>

4601211 Is it this one?

I can add it myself, if you want.

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It is indeed, and yes please. :>

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lol thank you.

I hope it makes sense...at least in the final chapter.

4601556 I hope so too.

Also, feel free to edit and stuff if you want to. Technically the deadline is still weeks away, so if you want to change something, that's cool in my books.

This group seems legit (I just joined), but I'm too busy writing Name Rater to enter. Also, I'm not sure I could pull off the prompt.

4601945 Not being sure if you can pull something off is the number one reason why you should go ahead and try it.

Take this group. Didn't think I could run a group featuring weekly prompts and regular contests. Went ahead and did it anyway. Because here...

We are men.

...write MLP fanfics...

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That logic is fucked up.

Ok, I'll see what I can do, the first of September, I think I might just pull it off. Thanks for the tip off
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Whoo! After reading this, I realised, had I waited another two days, I could pretend I wrote my latest (and sadly only) story for this competition.

No worries, just write another one, my inner cat told me.

I just hope the tale I am now embarking on makes sense in any sort of sanity, even alternate sanity.
Thanks, 4601969 for making me screw with reality.

4606301 Reality is optional, when you get right down to it. Insane people go without it every day, and a lot of them are perfectly happy (or at least no more miserable than sane people).

*cracks fingers*
Give me a few hours.
Edit: Done(Password is password)

4612067 Sweet.

However, I can't add it to the folder until it's published.

4612254 No biggie ^^

I just finished my submission. I only just submitted it, so if you can't access it, just wait an hour or so for it to be approved. EDIT: It's up.

By the way, I had no idea how much fun these types of stories are to write. Thanks for doing this competition, otherwise I would have never found the wonders of anachronistic storytelling.

4612758 Anytime. I'll add the story to our folder once it comes through (I'll check after dinner).

Glad you enjoyed it. We try to keep things a bit interesting around here.

4589792 FYI, I think you mean anachrony, not anachronism.

4613675 My interpretation is that the competition is to write stories that include themes, objects, persons that come from different time periods, and loosely that can also mean events from a different time period, so long as it is a juxtaposition, so it isn't meant to be there and is blatantly wrong and out of place. In fact, anachrony and anachromism come from the same word base.
Anachrony, is a flashback or a flashforward, a very specific writing style.
Anachromism, is an error in chronology, which is far more broad, and can include events, persons, and things that have been assigned to an incorrect timeline.

4589792 Question: Is it okay if I include a past story?

4616678 My original interpretation, based purely on the prompt, was that the contest was looking for anachronism, which is "things out of place in time," if you'll forgive me half-assing a definition. But then as I continued to read the post, every example our esteemed host gave were examples of anachrony, which is "telling a story out of order." So I assume, and I might be right or wrong on this, that the contest is meant to be about anachrony and HapHazred simply used the wrong word.

4616835 You very well could be right. Indeed it is true that my submission is told out of order. Hmmm...
I go! To seek my goal: CLARIFICATION!

4616835 Bit of both, really. While I wanted to focus on telling stories out of order, I also had no problem with the idea of, say, time travel and playing havoc with timelines.

That said, I do think the word I was looking for was in fact anachrony. I remember typing it and my spellcheck not recognizing it, so I used anachronism instead. In any case, I made sure to include a few examples in the OP to make sure people got the picture, whichever I should have used.

4616699 If it's been published before the contest aired (so about ten days ago) then that won't work. Sorry.

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Oh god I wanna write this, but I'm nto sure I can... and I got a chapter if a story REALLY needing to get released... and an other story to work on...

Oh well if I get a good idea I might join

Just a friendly reminder to all ye who stopped by (even if it was to call me out on my vocabulary... correctly too, by the looks of things) that two weeks have passed and there are but two more weeks and, like, a small handful of other days before contest closes.

We have four entries. Since I don't want to give away what we think of them, they may be good. Allegedly. Some of them.

I've ran out of things to say.

Bye bye!

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4629273 I'm not good at contests. Lel. Never get em in on time.

4629348 Hence why I'm here. My job is to be eternally disappointed in everyone who fails to deliver a story on time.

And believe me, I have loads of disappointment left in me. I was actually going to extend the offer to all of fimfiction.

I'm used to disappointment. I get it everytime we run out of beer.

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4629273 Yeah... don't think I'll actually be participating. Like... I don't care anymore. I know I won't win, so there's zero point in doing thing.
I'm actually considering hanging it up entirely and just disappearing.

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Crap...damn it steven universe why so distracting!? Anyhow, I’m counting on finishing ir next week...

4629379 I promise not to disappoint you. I hope. I have half an as-of-yet unproofread conglomeration of words some would be so bold as to call a 'story', or if they were particularly linguistically challenged, a 'sorty'. Seeing as I have not had any pre-readers for this, I may fall into the second category. Now, if you'll excuse me...

Even managed to work a reference in to that all while pandering to the gif-loving sensibilities of the internet.
I'm sorty, OK? Is that enough for you people?

I... hmm.

I'm not sure if Constellations counts as anachronistic. It... might? Since it involves fairy tales and flashbacks, but... er... really unsure if it "counts" or not...

4647440 It's the flashbacks that are important, here.

Well, it is an anachrony. I suppose it depends how important/recurring they are. If they play an important enough role, it's probs fine.