Hello one and all, and welcome once again to our running Bimonthly Twilestia Contest series. It is here that we write a story based around a central theme provided by yours truly and judged by three members of our wonderful group after two months of writing time. Feel free to PM me any questions you may have once I've gone over the basics, which I will get to without further ado. Since we've had a couple of these by now, I'll try to keep things short, sweet and to the point this time. Looking forward to your entries!

The Premise: By popular demand, this contest's premise is going to be Twilight's and/or Celestia's babies! Yes, you read that right. Cute little tinier-than-normal horses under the parental eyes of one of our two beloved main ponies. They can be the parents together (adopted, biological or magically created) or simply bond over being mothers together, but the story must involve at least one being a parent and the two sharing some kind of bonding experience over it. For more clarification on what you can do with the premise, just check...

Limitations: Any and all content in the fic is legal unless the group rules say otherwise. Please check over the rules thread if you have any worries about content. If it's within the rules, it's fine. As for word count, our lower limit is 1000 so that your story can actually be, y'know, a story, and our upper limit is 25,000. Yes, that's three zeroes. Any more and our judges would be fatigued reading the lot of them. Lastly, the story you write for this contest must be original. This means that you have to have never posted it before. Stories that have been written up but not posted are allowed. Reworks of stories written and posted two months ago are not.

Entering a story: In order to enter the contest, simply add your story in a comment in the thread of the contest. This is important. We once had an author that wanted to apply for the contest missed his chance because he forgot to do this step. If the judges don't know where to find this story, it can't be judged.

Judging: The judges for these contests are chosen on a first-come, first-serve basis, and there are three available judging slots. Please comment below if you're interested.

The Judges are:

--JKinsley

--Old Man

--Subsolar Drift

Winnings: As always, runner-ups for third and second place will receive an advert in the form of a group comment post on them. Second place will also receive a group post about its placing, with an optional interview from a willing group member. First place will receive a position in our lovely contest box, but because it's also getting a little crowded up there will more importantly be featured on the front of the group page beneath the description. In addition, offers of fanart will go to first place, then second, then third as they arrive.

Deadline: Entries will be due by September 30th, giving you plenty of time to write them up before and during the start of school.

Best of luck to all entrants, and enjoy the show to everyone!

Rejudging ahoy!

I am available for judging again.

This is a tempting prompt, I kinda wanna do like a sad story were Celestia comforts Twilight after the passing of child but you want parentage so that won't work. Hmmmmm, before entry I must mull this over.

Oh man! I'm gonna have a hay day trying to come up with a good story for this contest! Might as well get to brainstorming.

Just reminding people this exists in case they want to start early.

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...Why do you do this to me??? *sighs* Alright... But only a one shot this time! *mumbles about getting lynched*

4585269 Don't do it man, fight the power. Vive la revolucion.

4585269

I want to get started but no ideas have surfaced within my vast mind

4585457

I'd be interested in judging, but don't really have experience. Is that a problem?

4601910 What do you mean by 'But I'm having ones that work'

Does that mean you have ideas that don't work, or you have no ideas at all?

4606633 Well, why don't you tell me one of those ideas and why it won't work. Maybe I can give you a suggestion to make it work.

4596915 Sold! (No judging experience is required).

Yet another reminder that this exists.

I am sad but I just can't do this one. The well of ideas seems to have run dry when I try and add children to the mix

Had an idea for this. Typed like, 50 words, lost all motivation. Still have a month. Maybe the motivation shall return...

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Am I... the only one who wrote anything for this contest?

4714056 I think so. I just couldn't settle on anything parenty so I worked on some other stuff

4714065

Now I feel silly, and lonely...

4714072 Don't feel silly and lonely, fill yourself with the joy of TwiLestia. Let it flow through you, let it guide your fingers and let is' warmth lift your spirits to the sky. There is no wrong to be done with TwiLEstia and anything that expands the world of TwiLestia is a welcome gift.

4714487

B-b-but... there's not enough of it! What kind of competition is this going to be if I'm the only one entering?!

4714524 I just can't get the parent angle to work for me. Like I thought of sad ideas, Twilight loses a child and it brings her and Celestia together, but that didn't feel in the spirit of this competition. Then I was like maybe Celestia visits an orphanage for an opening ceremony or something and it stirs up old memories and we have a trip down memory lane between her and Twilight's courtship. That idea led to well maybe Celestia is teaching Twilight's grandfoal and she lets the foal in on a little secret, she or he is Celestia's grandfoal as well. Ultimately though, I just couldn't get anything to flow or work. I would try write only to scrap it in frustration before I got anywhere. I eventually just had to admit defeat.

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Such grandiose ideas I just gave them kids and worked it out from there...

4714617 I tried that, it got weird fast. Twilight and Celestia's child has more magic than Twilight and less restraint than Celestia. There was lots of jelly, several penguins, the personification of tantrums and jello.

4714885

Then why delete it!? That sounds amazing!

4714930 There are some things that are not meant for this world. Cthulu has cursed the creation himself

4715036

Awh

4714056 I got busy with a new semester, plus I'm feeling supremely disconnected from MLP in general. So I have a doc sitting on google detailing my idea and... well, it sits because even though I think what I had was a decent idea and could have been pretty good... I don't think I care.

4715228

Too bad.

4714885 Still worth publishing.

4714056 Do you have your submission? And yes, it seems that interest in contests was down over the summer. I mentioned to Fuzz that he could win by default, but I dunno if he or anyone else was able to enter anything.

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It's in the queue, should be posted by tomorrow after which I'll link it here.

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My entry:

Minding the Little Ones

My Entry.
Will You Want To Call Me Mom

Two days left, folks! Get those entries in soon!

Tomorrow it is judgment day!

4717122 4743323 4715250 4731428 4715750 4714487 4715228 4596915 4575753 Alright everyone, the judging results are officially in!

In the illustrious first place we have Foals Errand with Will You Want To Call Me Mom? The first place prize is a place in the contest winners folder and an advertisement on the front page!

In the magnificent second place we have Karrakaz with Minding The Little Ones! The second place prize is an advertisement in the group comments and an optional interview/discussion page.

Thank you both for participating, and I hope to catch a few more of you in time for the next contest.

4766710 While I congratulate Foals for winning, I've decided not to ever enter one of these contests again. I don't consider it fair to try to compete with stories that are written less as Twilestia and more as philosophical 'what if' pieces. Maybe the judges saw that as more interesting, but it's not why I read or write the pairing. I don't see the point in putting the effort into writing based on a prompt only to have the winner be someone who wasn't adhering to it.

4766725
Can you explain how I did not follow the prompt? I'm happy I won obviously, but i'd like to know why you feel that I went against the rules set in place.

4766725 This was uncalled for and thoroughly unnecessary. There's absolutely no reason to accuse fellow competitors of not following the rules when I expressly laid out the following in the rules:

They can be the parents together (adopted, biological or magically created) or simply bond over being mothers together, but the story must involve at least one being a parent and the two sharing some kind of bonding experience over it

Any and all content in the fic is legal unless the group rules say otherwise. Please check over the rules thread if you have any worries about content. If it's within the rules, it's fine.

AU stories are not outside group rules, and the two characters involved were undoubtedly Twilight and Celestia, so there's no reason to act like it isn't legal. For the record, I liked your story better. I thought it was mechanically better written and I liked the characterization better. If I were exclusively in charge of these contests, instead of getting a series of third party sources to judge the stories, yours would have won.

So that I'm telling you that this behaviour and attitude is completely unnacceptable should say something. If you have a problem with the way the fics were weighted or the posting of a competing story, take it up with the judges or with me. Don't lash out at other contestants and their stories in public.

4768607 Knight, the fault is not in Foals' story, they did a wonderful job. The problem is while the letter was observed, the spirit of any Twilestia story should be that it's focused on the couple. Twilight could have been married to anyone in that story. The focus was not on the couple, but on Twilight freaking out over the race of her foal. Interesting concept? The judges thought so. Twilestia? Not really. So... in the end I guess that it was the vagueness of the prompt that was the problem, not the judges, not Foals.

And how exactly is that lashing out? He wasn't saying the story was bad. He didn't say they broke the rules. Frankly, I think you're overreacting, and should apologize for it.

Karrakaz lost a contest and started bitching about it, and now Steel is white knighting. Gee, what a shock. Grow up already.

4768792 Hey Jon! Nice to see you needlessly trying to stir up shit. We should all look to you as the pinnacle of maturity. Here, have some stones. Watch out, though, your walls look awfully fragile.

4768715 The second chapter involved Celestia helping Twilight deliver, which explored their bond more and was what swayed the judge whose final vote tipped the scales.

Not that it matters anyway. Anything goes means anything goes. It's not about "spirit of the law", it's about being inclusive to many different types of stories. If you don't like the idea of including many different types of ideas in the contests regardless of how much they fit your idea of Twilestia, that's fine. Take up with me. In private. You two (and especially Karrakaz) have created at least three shitstorms in this group just because you didn't win. If you have an issue with my prompting or the judges' judging or another person's attitude, you should take it to me and the party you have a beef with and that should be the end of it. Not throwing it out in public where anybody who agrees or disagrees with you can further stir the pot and where people just trying to enjoy reading Twilestia and not wanting to have to deal with your drama has to see it. You've ended what was otherwise a perfectly functional contest on a sour note to the point where I have to shut down the thread to avoid further drama and personal attacks. I am very, very unimpressed.