STATUS: Results are in!

Contest Theme

"Bad Romance." Sunset x any MLP/EqG villain, but their relationship is...seriously flawed, or even outright horrible. Maybe it's a bad idea in retrospect. Maybe it was ALWAYS an obviously terrible idea for these two to get together. You could write this as comedy, or as tragedy, or just about any way you like.

If you don't want to write about only a terrible relationship, I guess you can write a love triangle to get something less horrific in too.

ADDED TO ANSWER QUESTION(S):I'm NOT trying to make you write only the most stereotypical and formulaic shipfic possible. So, for example, of COURSE you're allowed to write about a breakup if you want to. If you think you might surprise me, that's fine. If you think you might surprise AND delight many of your readers...that would be great imho. Reactception seems pretty accepting of good stories, so I think R. will agree.

Stories should be rated E or T (not M). Someone might have to read these stories on the bus or the train or someplace like that, in public.

Any one contestant may enter up to three stories.

Story Length

1000 words to...as long as you want, I guess? You can go even longer than seven thousand words if your story holds the judges' interest very well.

Additional Rules

Stories should be first posted/published before 11:59pm on SEPTEMBER 21st, 2022. Time zone: United States, Eastern.

We have created a group folder for you to put your stories in BEFORE THE DEADLINE. (You'll have to join the group to add a story to it.)

If this is your first story ever on fimfiction.net and you're having trouble publishing it on this website, please send a link with view password to both Mockingbirb and to Reactception. Email us if you have questions about this.

Please include a link to the contest in your story description.

Please don't change your story during the judging, because that could confuse the judges, and it might be cheating?

Please play nice, and try to have fun!

Contest Prizes

The usual Sunset Shimmer x MLP/EqG Villain prizes (like in the Sunset Shimmer x Trixie Lulamoon contest), PLUS a special set of extra prizes for this contest round: custom story commissions!

The top two contest entries will each receive a custom commissioned story as a prize, about a topic/theme/prompt chosen by the prize recipient. Each custom story will have a length, chosen by the custom story's author. Yes, a length, somewhere between a dozen or so words to thousands of words long.

If the writer who would write your story doesn't feel that they can do your commission request justice, they might ask for a different request.

The last two times a Sunset Shimmer x Villain contest winner chose a custom story commission as a prize, the results were https://www.fimfiction.net/story/504389/sunset-and-wallflower-ride-a-bus-across-state-lines-for-mostly-moral-purposes and https://www.fimfiction.net/story/516587/escape-room-with-zombie-pinkie-and-the-brraaaaiiinns . But we DON'T guarantee this contest's custom commission prize stories will be as long as those previous custom commission stories were (We didn't guarantee those stories would be as long as they were, either.)

If a winner doesn't want a custom story commission, another option is to ask for a preread of a story draft up to the first 2000 words, with feedback. (But if the prereader wants to keep going, the prereader might preread MORE than 2000 words.)

Any Mistakes, Errors, and Changes in Contest Rules

If we've made a terrible mistake in these rules and conditions, we reserve the right to fix them in a reasonable way.

Fixes and clarifications may be in italics, like this.

If either Mockingbirb or Reactception unexpectedly vanish from the horsewords universe, the remaining judge will be left to do the best they can, but the range of prize options might be reduced.

Now I'm thinking of the song by Lady Gaga.

That song was catchy back then.

Oh my Celestia, now it's in my head again.

Looking forward to judging this with Mockingbirb

Finally -- my true calling

Dropped my story in.

7728035
I have a couple of questions. I've been thinking long and hard for some story to fit these parameters, but I will need a little clarification. Currently, I have two ideas, but both of them don't necessarily involve an EQG villain in the bad romance spot. The first idea I have is a story where Sunset breaks up and gets over a bad relationship with Flash Sentry, relying on Adagio Dazzle for comfort. Of course, this would lead to a romance between Adagio and Sunset, where the story would end. Would it be alright to write a story like this, even if Flash isn't an EQG villain? Secondly, I plan on this story being four chapters long, but each chapter would be pretty short. I suppose this could fit into the love triangle aspect...? A little...? I really like the idea, but it's alright if this idea isn't going to work for this.

The second idea I have is a story where Trixie and Sunset are established as a couple, but they are seriously flawed with blackmail, gaslighting, etc. So, Sunset eventually breaks up with her and it shows Sunset's trials of getting over the relationship. Trixie is kind of in the middle since some people consider her an EQG villain, but some people don't. I'm not sure if this story would fit either. Would either of these prompts work? Any help would be appreciated~

7733036

I have a couple of questions. I've been thinking long and hard for some story to fit these parameters, but I will need a little clarification. Currently, I have two ideas, but both of them don't necessarily involve an EQG villain in the bad romance spot. The first idea I have is a story where Sunset breaks up and gets over a bad relationship with Flash Sentry, relying on Adagio Dazzle for comfort. Of course, this would lead to a romance between Adagio and Sunset, where the story would end. Would it be alright to write a story like this, even if Flash isn't an EQG villain? Secondly, I plan on this story being four chapters long, but each chapter would be pretty short. I suppose this could fit into the love triangle aspect...? A little...? I really like the idea, but it's alright if this idea isn't going to work for this.

The second idea I have is a story where Trixie and Sunset are established as a couple, but they are seriously flawed with blackmail, gaslighting, etc. So, Sunset eventually breaks up with her and it shows Sunset's trials of getting over the relationship. Trixie is kind of in the middle since some people consider her an EQG villain, but some people don't. I'm not sure if this story would fit either. Would either of these prompts work? Any help would be appreciated~

1. I think 'bad relationship ends in some kind of breakup' seems fine! I'd say it's one of the good general categories of stories to write about the "Bad Romance" theme.

2. I can see some sense in your worrying that a bad relationship with Flash (not usually considered a villain except maybe by thousands of people angry that he's a waifu stealer) followed by a possibly not terrrible comforting romance with Adagio might seem to be playing a bit creatively loose with the contest theme. But to me, what you want to do sounds fine. I think that story could be very interesting! I will ask Reactception to comment about this too, just in case.

3. I think BOTH of your ideas sound interesting and could make good stories.

4. A Sunset x human Trixie story won a recent Sunset Shimmer x Villain contest in this group, that Reactception and I co-judged. I think that's a good sign Reactception and I are ok with shipping Trixie, and probably other 'maybe villains,' as 'villainous enough to ship.'

5. I have no idea why you're worried that having four chapters would somehow be not good, or why you're worried about chapter length? I suppose there are people who prejudge a story based on chapter length, but I hope your contest judges won't be that superficial.

I honestly don't see why you are worried that we wouldn't like these story ideas. Was some narrow-minded person mean to you in the past when you tried to write an interesting story that didn't follow the exact script they wanted? I guess there are some contests that are judged that narrowly, but that narrowness certainly isn't what I want to do, and I think Reactception probably agrees with me.

7733067
Thank you so much for your reply! I really like my first idea and I want to write it a lot~ I'll wait until I see what Reactception thinks of it before I fully commit to writing it for this competition, since I don't have the time to write more than one story for this competition. But yeah. I was worried since the "Sunset x MLP EQG villain" part is technically separate from the "bad romance" part of the story, you know? But if you both think it sounds fine, I promise I'll put my back into it to give you a good story~

Well, the reason I was worried about chapters as a whole is because most competitions I've been a part of primarily wanted a oneshot and such. This story would also probably make it towards 10k to 15k words, which I know is way over the limit, but I don't want to stunt my writing, you know?

And yeah, some contests are definitely narrow-minded. They didn't want me to submit a story unless it followed the rules, instead of bordering on the rule outlines. Since my story ideas are kinda in a gray zone, I wasn't sure if you would allow it. You know?

7733120
If you think your story needs 10k to 15k words, I think you should go with the part of the rules that says "as long as you want, I guess?" and not worry about any very non-binding suggestions after that.

7733036
I asked Reactception, and they say

Yeah writing either or both is fine

7733389
I just finished one of the ideas and put it in the folder~