You get this early because I'm tired.

Anybody who’s ever known a couple will tell you that couples fight about any possible thing: Big things, little things, silly things and serious things. And yet it’s not very often that we see this in Flutterdash fics, which is a shame because it can be an absolutely wonderful way of exploring relationship dynamics.
And that brings us to the matter at hand.

The Prompt
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash have a fight.

The Deadline
This contest will end and judging will begin at 11:59 pm (AWST) on Monday the 16th of September. If any of the details of the contest change, I will extend the contest period by two weeks to Monday the 30th and the anyone who previously submitted will be allowed to rework and resubmit their entries.

The Rules
0) Submitted stories are to feature the Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash pairing past, present or future.
1) Submitted stories are to be greater than 4000 words in length.
2) Submitted stories are to have no greater than a T rating.
2a) That means no explicit descriptions of anything more “heated” than passionate kissing.
3) No content that would require the story to be tagged “gore” will be permitted.
4) Submitted stories must be complete.
5) Contestants may only enter one story each.
6) Stories submitted for this contest must not have previously been submitted to Fimfiction.

Important Note
Remember you’re writing for other people here, so while you can technically write that Grimdark Human in Equestria Crossover if it fits within the rules, you’re not likely going to do too well with it. Let your common sense guide you.

Judging
There are going to be two separate categories, and as such two winners.

One will be judged by a panel, and the other will be judged by you, the group members.

Judges will be judging on the quality of their prose, the quality of their plot and their handling of characters and the relationships between them.

Judging will be blind. That means you won’t be identified as the fic’s author until after the judging phase in order to prevent bias from influencing the judging.

Each judge will elect from the entry pool, a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in their opinion. 1st places will be awarded three points, 2nd will be awarded two, and 3rd place one point. The resulting scores will be tallied and the fic with the most overall points declared winner.

The people’s vote will be simpler. I’ll set up an online poll; you’ll have a number of votes depending on the number of entries. If anything suspicious occurs with the numbers, I’ll shut it down and no-one will get anything.

Submitting

Submit entries by PM to me. They can be in google documents or unpublished fimfiction stories. Please do not publicly publish your entry on Fimfiction before the end of the judging period. After judging you’re free to do whatever you like, and I’ll set up a group folder specifically for contest entries. This is in the interests of fairness.

The Prize

I’m working on getting something extra so watch this space. At the moment though, the prize is that links to you and your fic will be displayed on the group front page for the foreseeable future. That means the winners of both categories, as well as the runner up fics in both categories.

The Judges
In no particular order the members of the judging panel are.
KitsuneRisu
Jake R
Jondor
Skeeter the Lurker

And that concludes all the formal stuff. I'm really excited to see what you guys can come up with. Feel free to use the forums to brainstorm ideas, and if you have any questions feel free to message me or ask below.

I'm looking forward to reading your entries.

Sincerely,
Everhopeful

Challenge accepted

1532365

I will eat this challenge for break fast and crap it out for lunch, YEAH!

So the word fight is vague just to clarify it can be some silly verbal fight brought on by a stupid question RD is most likely to engage in asking right?

If so head canon is all ready for this fic.

Alright sounds great, guess I better get busy..... after I read some more fanfics.

I'm so entering this one. My entry will be the most brilliant thing ever created.

Oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
YES
Challenge has been accepted.

1532621
Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to be able to pick yours out with relatively no problem, despite it being blind?

1532967
Heh, yeah I saw the list of judges and I was like "Oh I know one which will be able to pick my entry regardless".
Didn't post that when I said I was joining, but now that this is out I can safely say you'll definitely know which fic it is. Unless other people also start writing the same, which I'm not opposed to because fimfic needs more of that anyway.

Bottomline: it's almost a shame that you're a judge, otherwise we should totally collaborate on it.

1533187
It's got mustaches in it, doesn't it.

1533218
that's a bit of an understatement, I'm afraid.

So is there a maximum word count?

1533239
I hope you know that in the interest of fairness, I will not be judging based on the quantity of mustaches in the fic.

Although it is very tempting to.

1533290
Aw :/

Nah, I'm all for a fair contest. I just saw your name up there and bam! I knew what I was going to write. I don't care whether it wins or not. It would be nice (don't we all) but if anyone gets a laugh or even just a smile out of it (or, more likely, going 'wat'), I'm happy.

You could always change the points system for judging to a mustache system. Think of it. Instead of saying "I give this fic one point." you'll be able to say "I award this fic with a mustache." Has a much better ring to it already.

1533524
I will consider it :3

Of course, it's rather hard to be a judge in a contest where people you are intimately (ho ho ho~ Remember that one night we had in Mustachedonia?) familiar with are taking part.

This brings about a severe issue, one of which affects many competitions today, from American Idol to Pakistani's Got Talent.

I am, of course, referring to Mustache Bias.

For how many times have we seen the Mustachioed contestant for Miss Universe win? How many times have we seen the president win based on the sole property of his fine, Ron Swansonesque Blackstache?

Too many times, I say. Too many times.

And I will give credit where credit is due, but I, unfortunately, will not be swayed by the lure of delicious, hirsute upper-lip coatings.

And this is a warning to all of the contestants. I will not be swayed (!!!!!!!!!) by the inclusion of beautiful, well-combed, face caterpillars.

Unless it's like this.

Then you win instantly.

Challenge Considered.

....Denied.

*flies away*

I accept this challenge!

Looking forward to it all.

This should be fun.

~Skeeter The Lurker

I shall enter the contest as well, may the best writer win

1532483

It's intentionally ambiguous. Any way of looking at it is correct, just be aware of the rules.

1533245

No there is not. Just keep in mind that you're being judged on quality not quantity and write as much as you need to.

I'll give it a shot, don't expect much though.

I'm in!

I'm in on this one.

Don't expect anything too fancy though.

Okay I should have asked this sooner but better late than never. If by coincidence I submit my entry and it so happens to be very similar to another entry that was already submitted then what would that mean for my entry, will it not count?, would I have to start over again?

1552035
Honestly, we're expecting a few similar entries at least. We won't hold it against any contestant if their entry turns out similar to someone else's, unless it looks like plagirism was involved on someone's part. I can't actually see any benefit to plagirizing anything in this case, but you never know when people will try something like this. On the whole though, you have nothing to worry about.

1532365
Can the pairing be one-sided?

1601382

The rule is that they have to be explicitly or implicitly stated to be together, at some point, past, present or future. One-sided is fine so long as they either get together, or have previously been together.

1601611
Cool beans, dude. Thanks.

Seeing as I'm a little over 3,000 words into my entry, I should probably officially throw my hat into the ring.

1603504

Cocky? Moi?

Pssh, it's true. I'm cocky as hell. With how this draft is progressing, I can way with 100% swaggery certainty...swaggertainty, if you will, that my story will be...

Completed before the dealine.

Phew! I have my entry written, now it's off to a few pre-readers for polishing.

There's about one week left, and to be honest I haven't written anything for this contest in the past weeks. It's still sitting there at ~1.7k.
Maybe I'll get some more inspiration, maybe not. It's a good thing it doesn't need to be published to the site because I would never post unpolished things.

On the other hand I just feel my premise could work better in a different story, ie non-shipping because apparently there are people that throw a fit over that. It also means I could make it even more random, which is always in this case a good thing.

Well, I finished my first draft of this, going to have someone read it over tomorrow and see if I can rustle up anyone else to provide feedback. Gotta make sure everyone is in character and that it all flows naturally.

I'll note you guys actually omitted a rather amusing rule from your rules list, but I don't want to speak up about it in case that was intentional and you were hoping someone would actually do it. I have to admit I was terribly tempted...

But I wasn't so sure you all would be amused. Of course, maybe I did it anyway...

My entry is almost complete, it's at 4,057 words right now and I'm nearly done. I think that I'm going to finish on time! YAY!

DONE
IT'S DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE
I am SO proud of it, I think it's the best work I've ever written, pony-wise, anyways! PMing it to Everhopeful right now. I am so happy I feel like I could fly!

Aaaaaaaaand done! Procrastination has once again caused me to create beauty! Just like in high school.

Victory at last!

Sure, I stayed up all night editing it, but surely it will all be worth it in the end, right?

Twas good practice.

May the best dragon win.

Also, quick question regarding the public vote:

How is that going to work? Are you going to just link all the fics anonymously, or is it going to be done after the secret judging is done?

1764851

I'm going to provide the public with the exact same link to the folder full of numbered entries that I'm providing to the judges. After that I'll set up a simple poll (if I can figure out how) where everyone has up to two votes on which numbered entry they think should win and leave that up until the judges all get back to me/ a week passes (depending on which occurs first).

Just as this whole thing started with my tired at the end of a long day, the entry phase draws to a close with me tired at the end of a long day. I'm not officially going to close entries just yet, I know there are a few people out there who've put the effort in but are having trouble with my timezone or other issues. What I am declaring is that I am going to bed, so don't freak out if I don't get back to you for the next eight hours or so, because I'll be asleep. So yeah, while I wait for the last entries to trickle in, I'm happy to say that so far this whole contest thing has been a blast. Without even the promise of a decent prize you guys well and truly rose to the challenge and as an admin here that warms the cockles of my heart. I'll talk more about it when I get up, if you think you haven't made it in time, you probably have, I've decided to be generous with anything that happens while I'm sleeping due to the formatting issue.

Goodnight. I'll see you all for the judging post tomorrow.

1765114

I'm curious: how many entries total do we have?

1765114

I'm so excited that I managed to get my entry in. I can't wait to read everyone's stuff and vote for my favorites!
Ahhhhh!
Good luck everyone!

1768841

Including the one I know I'm still waiting on, 11.

1769886

So excited!

1769886

So there will be 12 entries overall? Excellent~! Will you put up the judging thread as soon as the twelfth one is entered?

1770290

No, I've got 10, I'm waiting on one more to make the grand total of entries 11.

1770564

Alright, got it. Can't wait!

Well I am off to bed. I hope to see the entries tommorrow.

Blergh. I'm stuck waiting on one entry. Post goes up sometime tomorrow/today.

And judging is now closed. Results post coming up shortly.