Wow. 40 stories! Heck of a contest. I don't envy the judges, but I'm sure they'll be able to handle it. Probably.

In any case, while I haven't read all the stuff entered yet, I just thought I'd see what other people think about some of the stories that've been thrown in! 'Obscure shipping' is a heck of a broad category-- I almost wonder if it'd be easier to categorize stuff by crackfics, actual romances, or whatever.

Then again, there is that Tom/Boulder clopfic with entirely too cheesy of puns, so I figure that'll be the winner, and the rest of us just got in some good writing practice. :)

For my entry, I tried to think of the most obscure background characters I could. I came up with these two:

Eh. Shipping isn't really my thing.

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I think it would also depend on whether the judges want the ship to be done seriously or silly. A lot of the entries were comedies, and many more were still believable pairings that simply hadn't been done before - so, yes they still work as entries, but 'obscure' while broad enough to work with, is also going to depend on the tone that the judges were looking for. If silly, a comedy will likely win or they'll place higher. Maybe they have a rubric or something? Pretty sure the Twilestia contest did.

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Since the judges would ultimately have to come up with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, I figured I should list the three contest fics that became my favorites. In no particular order, tho, and I’m not a judge anyway, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of these gets into the top 3.

1. sweetie.log (Okay, so I lied a bit. This is, without a doubt, my favorite contest submission, at least of the ones that I’ve read. While it’s really friend-shipping and not actual shipping, and a pretty sad friend-ship at that, this is the kind of story I wish the site got more often. I know everyone and their mom has mentioned the way the fic is formatted, and I’ll admit I’m guilty of that too, but it’s so damn creative, and I can really get a sense of how much work was put into the story being written in this way. My inner post-modernist also has a soft spot for unconventional prose styling, but the story works great even without that in mind. I hope it does well.)
2. Unexpected Hazards of Interdimensional Transit (One of two of my picks involves Sunset Shimmer, and I find it hard to believe this is a coincidence. Even though this one is pretty long, it manages to keep its sense of humor sharp, and if there was any fic that won me over on charm alone, this was it.)
3. Time and Time Again (Hey, what if Life is Strange was a comedy, and also not crap? I kid, of course, but not really. Also, any fic that manages to capture Minuette’s canon personality is a good time in my book.)

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and the rest of us just got in some good writing practice. :)

Pretty much the only way I was able to convince myself to participate was to tell myself it was just a fun prompt. If we're being real, though, I'd give the prize to sweetie.log .

For mine, I wanted to go completely random with who I was shipping, so I asked a Discord chat I'm in to name any two ponies, as long as it wasn't two of the Mane Six. I was given Celestia and Tree Hugger, and my mind came up with ideas right away.

I love obscure/crack shipping

I already told y'all, the Tom/Boulder clopfic is gonna win. Might as well just quit life if you didn't write it.

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Yes, but what if someone wants to write a modest 100k spin off clopfic of Toulder? Should we quit then?

This was really just the perfect excuse to write a story I was already planning. I always wanted to write a Spike Pinkie story but had no idea how I'd pitch it to my readers without seeming like I was going completely bonkers. Even though I probably won't win now, I'm glad I gotta get the story out there.

(Now you gotta do the contest again so I can write a RainbowSandwich thing. )

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Same here. This contest was the kick I needed to finally write Shell Game, which I know won't rake in views since it's such an uncommon pairing... but I really wanted to write it

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You spelled Rarilee wrong.

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I confess, I just can't bring myself to write trust absurdist stories. I need to have something there. I originally wasn't going to do it, until an idea fell in my lap (thanks Oroboro, all your fault) and I just needed to have some fun. I haven't had enough true comedies lately. This was a great excuse.

...and I really just liked the idea of Amy putting the beat down on Sunny with a wedding biner.

My favorites are definitely the ones with some real stuff in there, so I'm a sucker for Oroboro and Albi's story (and not just because I did the cover art for both!). CoffeeMinion also had a kickass Troubleshoes one that I never saw coming.

Beyond that... yeah, should be good times.

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You’d have to be a real stoner to think otherwise.

Nevertheless, I will reserve judgement until I’ve been able read to read more of the fics. Besides which, we authors of messy biological ships can dream on in the forlorn hope that some of the judges harbor an irrational fear of rocks, stones, and other things hard.

Much like a child screaming at 1 AM just because you left the room and it thought you stopped existing, I was overjoyed to kick my fanfic out of my home and into the entries. Had too much telling, not enough showing, the format is a bit janky too. My attempts at writing romance are like a fat clown trying to erotically lick his fingered gloves, so I was happy to both attempt and finish this. Trying to write a story from the POV of a tree was interesting!

Need to get around to reading all the others. I read Albino's due to the story being his, love the guy. Boulder hanky panky sounds interesting~

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Loved your story! I do have an alternate title for you: “Gift of the Gami”.

I have a couple of these on my read later list now. So it's pretty win-win all around.

6009112 I wrote my entry more for trying to amuse... don't know if it did, but when I saw the contest almost a month ago my first idea was Blueblood/Seabreeze. Mostly because it's preposterous!

I wonder when we'll find out who the winners are. I remember hearing it'd be today, but I wouldn't be surprised if that date's pushed back a bunch, with there being a lot more stories than was expected.

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Any news on the progress of the judging? 40 stories is after all a truly biblical quantity of fics to read!