i’d like to start off by thanking all the entrants for both your entries in this little contest as well as for your patience for these awfully delayed results! (again, so very sorry about that!) it was so wonderful to see the many different ways and angles these poly relationships were explored by this span of stories, running the gamut from a relationship's beginning sprouts to its well-established dynamics and beyond.

as always, the process of declaring winners is very difficult in a contest as small as this. but i hope you know that whether your entry appears in this post or not, i was grateful for every word. and of course, if you, whoever is reading, has not yet read the entries, do consider giving them a shot.

and yes, narrowing it down was painful! six entries means only two stories can appear on this post, and it was difficult enough getting it to two, after so much rumination and arguing with myself and thinking it through. i do hope you forgive me for sparing myself the final dreadful decision of which of the two to declare as second and which to declare as first! being so very different from each other in form and goal, they were difficult to directly compare.

the prize purse is as follows:

• First Place (tie): $50 (x2)

and now, the winners!

“That Special Day“‘s cover and cryptic description are enough to figure out at least some elements of its premise: Fluttershy’s old age, memory loss, and the horror of the idea of waking up one day in the body of an old woman, an entire lifetime gone, with no memory or even realization of it. but that is just one twist of the knife, and Dewdrops on the Grass has so many more of those in store as she reveals the nature of the situation and its implications, with each twist widening the cruelly tragic gulf between the magic of the moment that Fluttershy thinks she is in, and the reality of the hell her wives are living through to keep Fluttershy thinking that way. and the poly nature of the marriage is wonderfully used here to add further twists of the knife not possible had the story been just about Fluttershy and Rainbow. what a great use of it!

—Bicyclette

TThat Special Day

• Equestria Girls
• Romance
• Sad
• Tragedy

Fluttershy readies for the most special day of her life... and then she does it again, and again, and again...

• Rainbow Dash (EqG)
• Sci-Twi
• Fluttershy (EqG)

Dewdrops on the Grass · 6.1k words  ·  61  7 · 1.4k views

Roseluck, Daisy, and Lily are easily only remembered for their common theme as “flower ponies” and their one-note recurring gag of overreacting to things together, but Space_Kase brings them to life here wonderfully. in its mere three short scenes. not only do their characters feel fleshed-out and distinct and full, but so does their relationship and how they fit into each other’s lives in both the mundane troubles of the everyday and the (when one thinks about it, obvious) unspoken horror of being background ponies in Equestria: powerless in the face of whatever danger it takes the main characters of the series to defeat. the three of them are together, they work, that is “what matters the most”, and i can’t imagine them any other way.

—Bicyclette

EPetals and Thorns

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Slice of Life

Times the Flower Trio took care of each other.

• Roseluck
• Daisy
• Lily

Space_Kase · 1.6k words  ·  22  2 · 372 views

prize PMs to be sent! and another contest dropping here soon (which i will be a lot better about turning around results for, Pinkie Promise!)

until next time, here are some other currently-running contests:

• my A Thousand Words Contest II, ending 2023 Jul 30
• Bean's Writing Group’s The New Blood Contest, ending 2023 Jul 31
• the Sunset Shimmer x Villains Shippers’ Group’s Sunset’s Sci-fi Shipping X Villain Competition ending 2023 Aug 01

Congratulations to everyone who entered, and especially to Space_Kase for the tie for first place with me. I wasn't expecting to place second, let alone tie for first, so I feel accomplished, as you should too, Space_Kase. Thanks for the contest, Bike, it was a blast to write for.

Congrats to all participants and the winners. I'm just glad I was able to come up with a response to the prompt in time; I was blanking on this one for a while.