Announcing: The Pillars Shipping Contest! · 5:03pm Jun 30th, 2021
Source: SkullJooce
Hi everyone!
Last year around December, I wrote a gift fic about a romantic relationship between Somnambula and Meadowbrook. At the time I figured there were a ton of other stories about them already, but I was shocked to see that there was not a single fic on the site that shipped them. And in fact, there’s not many stories that ship the Pillars in general.
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
From July 1st to August 1st AUGUST 8TH, I will be hosting the Pillars Shipping Contest! The gist of the contest is what’s on the tin: submissions must include a romantic dynamic between a Pillar (Somnambula, Mistmane, Meadowbrook, Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, Starswirl, or Stygian) and any other character in the show.
The rules for this contest are as follows:
- All entries must have a romantic relationship between a Pillar and another character or characters. However, the use of other genres are allowed: you could for example write a horror story as long as it has Pillar shipping.
- The Pillar you choose must be at least one of the following: Somnambula, Mistmane, Meadowbrook, Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, Starswirl, or Stygian. Writing an AU where the Main Six are the Pillars and shipping them with each other is not allowed; that defeats the purpose of getting the Pillars more stories.
- Stories must be published on FimFiction between July 1st midnight Pacific and August 8th midnight Pacific. Fics published before or after this time will be disqualified.
- If you are a new writer and your fic ends up stuck in the moderation queue, CONTACT ME so you don’t get disqualified!
- One submission is allowed per author. The wordcap for this contest is 15k words.
- Submissions will be sent through the Rare Pairings Pillars Shipping Contest folder. Make sure to join the group and submit!
- Stories of any rating (E, T, or M) are allowed, and there is no word cap for this contest. Mature fics are allowed, but not required. Bear in mind that the contest is still about the story. Mature fics won't score extra points (and may score less if not well executed!). The story must be completed aby the deadline of August 8th.
Finally, on July 11th, 2:00 to 3:00 Pacific time, there will be a Pillars Shipping Speedwrite contest on the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting server! This is a fantastic opportunity to get work done on your fic as well as get it pre-read by a fantastic community. NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT REQUIRED FOR THIS CONTEST, but is a great tool nonetheless. You will need a discord account and a reddit if you wish to participate.
Now for the part everyone is waiting for: prizes!
I am pleased to announce that thanks to an anonymous donor, a total of $250 is available for the winners as follows:
1st place: $125
2nd place: $75
3rd place: $50
Judges:
For this contest I have recruited the best and brightest minds I could find (and who also still tolerate talking to me)! The judges will be myself, KrazyTheFox, Zontan, and wishcometrue!
Judge blurbs
“KrazyTheFox is an experienced contest host/judge, having run the past five AppleDash contests and one, large AppleDash writing event. He likes cute romance stories, sad romance stories, long walks in the park, slice of life romance stories, comedic romance stories (just feed him all the romance stories, honestly), and has, most recently, been bitten by the background/minor character shipping bug. Thanks, Red.” —KrazyTheFox
“wishcometrue is not an experienced contest judge, but it’s okay because she’s very cute. She loves romance stories, but also loves other genres too because she isn’t boring like Krazy. Red had to pay her to do this.”—wishcometrue
“The Red Parade is an experienced speedwriter and former reviewer but has yet to run a contest: they are however excited to do so! Red enjoys a variety of genres including fluffy slice of life, happy and sad romance, existential and eldritch horror stories, and is a huge fan of background ponies. He is known to constantly gush about these ponies to his alleged “friends,” who he pays exorbitant cash sums to be around. He also allegedly does not know the difference between Applejack and Sweetie Belle, much to the annoyance of Wish and Krazy.” --Red
"Zontan is the fearless leader of Quills and Sofas Speedwriting, and an experienced editor and reviewer. He enjoys character pieces about characters doing interesting things that characters do, which covers all genres pretty nicely. No one told him that there was the option of getting paid." --Zontan
And that’s pretty much all you need to know! Should you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me either on fimfic or through discord at @RedParade#0909. Hope to see y’all there!
Wow, this is great!! I'm super excited to participate! I haven't written any shipping material for any of the pillars, but they're really cool and have excellent potential... Let's hope we flood the site with some good content!
One quick question: are there word count brackets?
5545345
Nope, there are no word count limitations as I'm not expecting all that many entries!
Sounds good, might make it my second MLP Pride and Positivity fic this year.
5545353
Looking forwards to it!
You should let the site staff know and they'll post it as a site post! Hop in the fimfiction discord for details.
Also if I write a shipfic shitfic will you hate me forever?
5545590
I'm aware of the site posting requirements but I don't meet them yet as this is the first contest I've hosted, but thanks for the heads up!
A shipfic entry from you would... certainly be interesting to say the least!
The possibilities are absolutely endless.
5545690
Indeed
Ah excellent. I hadn't had to chance to finish my story - hopefully this will give me the motivation.
5545728
Good luck!
5545595
Yo U could def get me or someone else who's run a contest to "sponsor" this!
5545975
Thanks for the offer! I'm pretty chill with keeping it at a smaller level at the moment, plus I want to make sure I can qualify myself for future site posts. Krazy's also offered the chaperone it if the need arises but I'll keep it in mind!
This seems like a fun contest!
5546008
yeye
RULES AMENDMENTS:
I am going to attempt to secure a site post for this contest, which means a bigger participant pool than originally anticipated. The following rules have been amended:
EACH PARITCIPANT CAN ONLY SUBMIT 1 FIC.
THE WORDCAP FOR THIS CONTEST IS 15,000 WORDS.
5545345
Added upper limit of 15,000 words, sorry about that!
5547215
Sounds like plenty to me! Thanks for the update!
Question, can I make a fiction a sequel based on the fiction I wrote before? I want to make a side fiction of the fiction My little Sirens, which Starswirl is the father of Adagio, Aria and Sonata, and I want to create a chapter of their new mother...
If I make a fiction based on the shipping of StarSwirl having a romance with what would be their new mother, can this be allowed to be part of the contest?
5552326
Sequels are allowed, however they should be able to stand on their own: don't expect the judges to read the prequel work for more information. Hope that answers your question!
5552397
That answers. I will make sure to make subtle that this story would be focus on the present and it wouldn't need to read much about the prequell to understand. Thank you.
IMPORTANT: This blog post contained out of date information.
Each author is limited to 1 15k entry as opposed to the originally declared 2 entries. This was an oversight on my part not updating on this end: I hadn't anticipated people using this post as a rules reference instead of the group's post, that's an error on my part. I am very sorry for any confusion or wasted time that resulted from this mistake.