kintsugi
the beast without a human heart
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
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Hello hello! It's time for the Spring 2026 Shipping Oneshot Competition, marking the third year of our collaboration with our wonderful friends here in the Shipper's Paradise and in the Writers’ Workshop!
As is tradition, you'll have a little over a month to write a short story featuring a ship of your choice inspired by our three community-picked themes: "Reminiscing With You", "You're Worth Hell", and "The Road to Redemption". Note that romantic, platonic, and queerplatonic ships are all equally welcome and encouraged!
Our panel of judges will read and review every entry amongst themselves, then pick a winner in each of several categories. These categories will vary depending on the entries submitted, but may include: Best Romance, Best Use of Theme, Best LGBTQ+ Romance, or something entirely new! Our judges will also pick the Best Overall Fic. Additionally, there will be a bonus category in the form of a community-wide vote for the overall best story. The winner will be chosen by you!
In terms of prizes, all participants will receive a review on their fic and a special badge to display on their profile! The winners and runners-up will each receive a unique champion's variant of the badge, as well as a custom-made signature banner to commemorate their efforts. And, of course, there's the fun of sharing in the festivities with all your friends!
The full contest rules are below. If you've participated in any of our previous writing events, then these will sound familiar to you. Please take the time to read them carefully.
Rules & Guidelines:
The themes are: "Reminiscing With You", "You're Worth Hell", and "The Road to Redemption".- Try to think of a scenario fitting one of these themes that your ship might face together. What do you imagine first?
- You may use more than one theme if inspiration strikes. Interpretations of themes do not have to be literal. Overall, the context, genre, tone, and so on are entirely up to you. Flex those creative muscles and have fun!
- Your story should be one self-contained chapter that is less than 10,000 words, as determined by this word checker. There is no minimum word count—it can be as short as you like.
- You have ~seven weeks to write your entry, starting now! The entry posting window opens on Sunday, May 8th 23:59 PST, and closes Sunday, May 10th, 23:59 PST. To afford roughly equal time for reading to the community and judges, you must post your story during the posting window for your story to qualify for the contest. Please also post a link to your story in this thread so we know you meant to enter the contest. After the posting window closes, please wait until the contest is concluded to make any edits to the version of your story posted on Bulbagarden.
- Publish your work as its own thread in the Bulbagarden Library, and post a link in this thread. Make sure that your story adheres to the Bulbagarden Library Rules and Content Warnings Guidelines. You may submit Non-Pokemon Stories as well, but be advised that judges are typically more familiar with Pokemon and may require more context in other fandoms.
Unlike previous years, we do not require that you need to sign up in this thread to be considered entered—so long as you post your story and a link to your story in this thread during the posting window, you're good! Do feel free to use this thread to talk about entering, check in with progress, hype, etc (in fact, we'd love that + it would help us get a headcount together); you are just no longer required to sign up prior to the posting window.
If you're interested in judging, please mention that in the thread too! Judges are welcome to enter the contest in addition to their judging duties (we simply ask that they do not judge their own work); however, if you do sign up to be a judge, please refrain from giving story advice to other participants.
Good luck!
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