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Poll: One-Shot Contest Themes

What theme would you like for this theme's contest?

  • Galar

    Votes: 7 25.9%
  • Human/Pokémon Partnership

    Votes: 14 51.9%
  • Myths and Legends

    Votes: 15 55.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 7.4%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
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Not open for further replies.

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Our next big event is going to be a one-shot contest! The idea is simple: people write one-shots based on a set theme, and group of judges reviews them and selects their favorites. Only thing: we need a theme, and also a couple of those judge people! The staff have discussed possible themes already, but I thought it would be most fun to let members have some input. I've listed some options below; feel free to vote for as many as you like and/or suggest something completely different. Here are the options in more detail:

Galar: Celebrate the latest generation of pokémon with a Galar-themed story! Whether you want to showcase some of Galar's new pokémon, some of its characters, or the region itself, as long as your story has Galar at its heart, we'd love to see it! Your story doesn't need to be set in Galar itself, but should be strongly connected to it in some way.

Pokémon/Human Partnership: The connection between humans and pokémon has always been at the core of the franchise, whether it's the bond between trainer and pokémon, between pokémon-turned-human and partner, or even the fleeting relationship between a ranger and a pokémon they've called on for help. How do humans and pokémon live together in the pokémon world, for good or for ill? Whether you want to explore the sorts of examples we've seen in canon or take things in a completely different direction, it's fair game as long as the story centers around the relationship between humans and pokémon!

Myths and Legends: The pokémon world is full of stories, from tales about specific pokémon to legends of ancient heroes. For this contest, we'd like to see you explore some of those in your story! You might choose to write your own pokémon myth, expand on one from canon, or write about characters investigating a local legend--anything that centers around an in-universe myth! Although a legendary pokémon may be the center of a myth and might certainly appear in your story, the main focus should be on the stories surrounding that pokémon--simply having a legendary pokémon feature isn't enough for a story to fulfill this theme.

If you have other ideas for themes, feel free to throw them out here! If people like one you come up with, we'll go with it instead, and even if we don't end up using it for this contest, there's a good chance of it showing up in a future contest or other writing event.

Also, we're looking for people interested in judging for this contest! Being a judge means committing to reading and writing reviews for up to a dozen or so one-shots in the space of two months, and also means that you won't be able to enter anything into the contest yourself. The writing phase of the contest will run mid-February through mid-March, which means that you'd potentially be judging through mid-May. We're looking for three-four judges total, so if you're interested please post in this thread here, VM/PM/Discord ping/carrier pigeon me, or otherwise let the staff know!
 

WildBoots

Don’t underestimate seeds.
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. moka-mark
  2. solrock
I doubt I’ll cobble together a one-shot myself — I’m quite slow — but I’m interested in judging.
 

canisaries

you should've known the price of evil
Location
Stovokor
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. inkay-shirlee
  2. houndoom-elliot
  3. yamask-joanna
  4. shuppet
  5. deerling-andre
Tough call between these, honestly, they're all good prompts. I'd really like to write myself, so I guess that's me out of the judging pool, but I hope to read others' entries anyway!
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
I went with either human/pokemon partners or myths and legends, both sound fun. I'd be open to judging!
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
I doubt I’ll cobble together a one-shot myself — I’m quite slow — but I’m interested in judging.
I went with either human/pokemon partners or myths and legends, both sound fun. I'd be open to judging!
Fantastic! Thanks to both of you for volunteering.

There are a couple of people who've voted "other" so far--if you have a different theme you'd like to see, please share it! Or if you mean "other" more in the sense of "please god anything but one of these" but don't really have anything else to suggest, that's useful feedback, too. :P
 

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Staff
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. charizard
  3. milotic
  4. zoroark-soda
  5. sceptile
  6. marowak
  7. jirachi
Oh right I said this on discord but I'm also interested in judging if needed -- particularly if humans/pokemon winds up winning, since I don't have any material that I'd be interested in writing for that that isn't a huge HoC spoiler.
 

Umbramatic

The Ghost Lord
Location
The Yangverse
Pronouns
Any
Partners
  1. reshiram
I am super very stoked and down for judging!

All those themes sound good but I went with Myths and Legends and Pokemon/Human bond because both of those are my jam in pokefics both in terms of reading and writing
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Oh right I said this on discord but I'm also interested in judging if needed -- particularly if humans/pokemon winds up winning, since I don't have any material that I'd be interested in writing for that that isn't a huge HoC spoiler.
I am super very stoked and down for judging!

All those themes sound good but I went with Myths and Legends and Pokemon/Human bond because both of those are my jam in pokefics both in terms of reading and writing
Fantastic! Thanks to you both. At this point I think we should be all set for judges.

Just a couple days left for votes, and our top categories are neck and neck! If you haven't put a vote in yet, please do so soon... the outcome is very much still up in the air.
 

The Walrein

Vicinal Dragging for the Truth
Partners
  1. gulpin
  2. kricketot
  3. bulbasaur
I don't have any comments on the themes, but I'd like to suggest that we use a publicly available word-counter (such as the one here) instead of the old method of hoping that whatever word-counter the judges are using doesn't give too different results from your own.
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
I don't have any comments on the themes, but I'd like to suggest that we use a publicly available word-counter (such as the one here) instead of the old method of hoping that whatever word-counter the judges are using doesn't give too different results from your own.
Good call. There's no reason not to make it something standardized that people can check their work against.

And with that, the poll is closed! It was a tight race the whole way, but in the end Myths and Legends squeaked out a win over Human/Pokémon Partnership by a single vote! That's our theme for this contest, then, but there's obviously a lot of interest in Human/Pokémon Partnership as well, so you can expect to see it popping up in the future, too. I'll get to work on working out the final contest logistics, so keep an eye out--in about a week I'll put up the kick-off post to officially launch the contest. It'll include the full rules, contest timeline, prize info, and everything you should need to get started with your writing.

Huge thanks to everyone who voted, and I hope you've already got some fun ideas brewing for the winning theme!
 
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