UPDATE: The latest version of the rules, with Q&A, is at this link: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215660/sunset-shimmer-x-eg-mlp-villains-shipperss-group-competitions/thread/500916/bad-romance-sunset-and-any-mlp-eqg-villain-have-a-seriously-flawed-or-terrible-relationship-august-14th-to-september-21st

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, idk.

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 7000 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.