1. Are submitters allowed to withdraw a story by removing it from the group (once, permanently) and submitting another story, if they publish more than 3 stories involving Shining Armor being a terrible dad before the deadline?
2. Are dark horror/tragedy stories allowed, if they affect neither Flurry Heart nor non-adult characters and follow every other contest rules (e.g. forbidding Mature stories)? I've assumed so, since it isn't forbidden. I'm close to finished writing a tragedy involving an adult that isn't related to Shining Armor (about Shining Armor being a terrible dad).

And I had a few less important questions that may affect others, but don't affect me.

3. In retrospect, it seems obvious that writers only need at least a reasonable amount of Shining Armor being a terrible dad in contest submissions for the rubric in https://www.fimfiction.net/group/217460/shining-armor-is-a-terrible-dad-2024-competition, and anything in excess of that doesn't affect scoring (e.g. nothing is affected by that, not even Characterization). Is that correct?
4. Is there a maximum amount of words (e.g. 5.5k, 6k, 7k) where a submission would lose points per 1K words, but wouldn't require approval from a judge to submit? (I plan to stay under the limit regardless, but other authors may not want to wait for approval if they plan to rewrite a story before the contest is over)
5. Does show-accurate American spelling affect grammar scoring in the rubric for names, etc. (e.g. Shining Armor vs. Armour) - this doesn't affect me at all, since I plan to use American spelling to match the show, but affects other stories that I have seen.
6. Is "Impact" in that rubric referring to the impact on the world, character, reader, etc.? (or something else) (I'd conservatively assumed all of the above; other parts were easier to guess)

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1. You can submit more than 3, but the 4th won't be subject to scoring. You can remove any of the three already submitted and let the judges know which one if you want the 4th entry to pass.

2. This is fine SO LONG AS child abuse isn't involved and Shinging Armor is still a terrible dad, although if Shining isn't the subject of the story, then you may be climbing up a rocky hill.

3. Define what you mean by reasonable amount? Like, if you want to start him off as terrible and have his character progress into being an okay dad, that's fine, but it's I'm the title of the contest. Shining Armor is a terrible dad.

4. Go crazy with the word count, just the more words you use, the more your chances of winning drastically decrease. You start losing points after the first thousand words with a leeway of 500 words. Let's say you write 6,500 words. The 500 will be rounded to the nearest thousandth. That's 2 points lost because you're 2,000 over the limit.

5. It shouldn't, no.

6. Impact the story had on the judges. How they feel at the end. If they feel like the experience was worth it. If all the planets lined up to bring them a masterpiece.

Thanks! That answers all my questions.

2. (...) and Shining Armor is still a terrible dad, although if Shining isn't the subject of the story, then you may be climbing up a rocky hill.

Agreed about the rocky hill part; I finished the story (after my previous comment) and I'm not sure if it's already disqualified (and if I should withdraw it myself). I'd probably withdraw it anyway if I finish more than 3 stories; It's 7.4k words long(-2 points) and doesn't contain nearly enough mentions of Shining Armor and Flurry Heart.

The story in question was a story told from the first-person perspective of a potential threat to Equestria having their plans foiled accidentally by Shining Armor being a very terrible dad (and silently monologuing about it in the last chapter). After that, the threat is sealed away in a show-accurate manner.

So that I don't accidentally submit something that violates unwritten guidelines in other submissions, I had other questions:

2. No Fetish tags. That should be obvious. This contest doesn't exist because we want to read a bunch of incest fics, it exists because Shining is a himbo dad we want to see fail.

Are Teen rated stories allowed that don't have fetish tags, e.g. if Shining Armor has a misunderstanding about slang and mistakenly thinks that an adult character has a fetish, e.g. for a comedy story where every one of these conditions apply

(1) No characters have that fetish, and
(2) The character in question is written as asexual and aromantic in thoughts and actions, and
(3) It's something the character in question would find absurd and be indifferent to (and is characterized that way for the entire story), e.g. horns or wings (and the story is written not to describe features in a way that would be appealing to readers)
(4) The character in question is a human (not sure if adding this would disqualify it)

EDIT: I finished the story in question before getting a response - it seemed fine from this and the previous contest's submissions

3. No child abuse. Even if you have the talent to make any topic funny, try to avoid veering into edgy territory. I know it seems impossible, but take it as a test of creativity. A test to see how bad of a father Shining can be.

Do political marriage engagements (marriages of state) count for Shining's children (Flurry Heart or any adopted children)? Specifically when all characters are adults, and the story shows that it's clear to all characters involved that Shining Armor can't and won't (legally, personally, by guilt tripping, etc.) continue to try to convince them to get engaged or married (and the child could/did easily cancel the engagement)?

(5) I assume trying to discuss potential adult marriage partners openly with his adult child is fine, regardless of the adult child's species?
(6) What about announcing an engagement without an adult child's knowledge?

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Are Teen rated stories allowed that don't have fetish tags, e.g. if Shining Armor has a misunderstanding about slang and mistakenly thinks that an adult character has a...

I'll assume that I was overthinking that, given judges stories that seem to be following all explicitly stated rules on the group page.

EDIT: And the previous contest (https://www.fimfiction.net/group/215615/folder/74288/cadance-is-a-terrible-mom-contest-folder-dont-ever-try-to-post-here-its-locked) had some related tags but no human.

EDIT: I messaged a judge to ask.