Wing Three Contest!

Here We Go Again…

Three and a half years since the last wing contest, we've produced another 1000 entries, or a bit under one entry a day. This feels like a good pace to me - you can read everything (if you want) without jettisoning the rest of your life or waiting weeks for something new. The days where any new entry was an event have been replaced by a pleasing bustle of creative energy, without taking away from the special occasion that is a new addition to the Library. To those who have been around since the last contest or earlier: Enjoy this one, and thank you for staying with us. For those who have joined more recently: We're so thankful you've decided to take this journey with us, and hope you make good company.

A journey implies a destination, though not always known in advance. What will you find on your path? How long will it last? It's rare that a stay on this website is permanent. We come and we go, join, write, make friends, give feedback, and eventually, almost inevitably, get pulled away by life. What they leave with us are their stories, a term that encompasses more than just what they've posted to be voted on. There's the critique they've given to other writers, comments they've left to be rediscovered. the personal support they add to each other's lives, memories of late night conversations and in-jokes that persist. Even a vote gives us a little piece of someone's world, brushed against ours for an instant.

We linger in those who go as well. Friendships that remain, lessons learned, stories that stick in their hearts. When someone is gone, it doesn't mean that they've been forgotten, or forgotten us. Like the Library itself, this website is a place for people to pass through, here when they need it, open to all who do. Bit by bit we grow. For how long? How much? As much as you, all of you, will it. As long as you still wish to give.

Wing contests have a unique place in the story we're building together. They're a milestone, and a turning point. One phase closes into the opening of another. Here is your chance to decide what we'll be, to vote, with your stories, for what comes next. Will it be lore of the Library itself? A far reaching fantasy epic? A gritty crime drama? A down-to-earth love story without a trace of the fantastic? These websites move in waves, shifting with the tastes and passions of the users who come and go. Now is your chance to put everything you have into the work, to light a fire in us all.

What will you leave with us, and what will we give to you?

- rumetzen

Art by mxssacre

“Who are you? A simple son of the soil, as you pretend to yourself? Oh, no. You, too, are among the infirm—you are the dreamer, the madman in a madder world, our own midwestern Don Quixote without his Sancho, gamboling under the blue sky… But you have the taint, the old infirmity. You think there's something here, something to find. Well, in the world you'd learn soon enough. You, too, are cut out for failure; not that you'd fight the world. You'd let it chew you up and spit you out, and you'd lie there wondering what was wrong. Because you'd always expect the world to be something it had no wish to be. The weevil in the cotton, the worm in the beanstalk, the borer in the corn. You couldn't face them, and you couldn't fight them; because you're too weak, and you're too strong. And you have no place to go in the world.”

- John Williams, Stoner

Some people are born in the wrong world. From the beginning, life fights against their existence. Faced with the overwhelming odds of a reality that does not tolerate their presence, the choices become this: disappear or resist. Those who survive discover in the end there was no choice at all.

They congregate, when they can. The only way to survive when the world doesn't want you is to make your own. These people understand you, you think, others who would have been crushed, and you do your best to understand them in return. You want each other because there needs to be someone to want the invisible people. You huddle together in the manger, where, even though the storm rages outside, there is at least warmth. Until the roof is ripped from the walls.

So, why? Why not give in, do what the world wants, take the path where no resistance is needed? Because then you would be torn apart. Because, when you are fighting or running, when you are afraid and desperate to survive, you are at least whole. You will not let yourself be cut to pieces.

Write about the unwanted people, the unknown people. The people with no home, the people searching for a home, the people who have finally managed to build a place they can call their own. Write about the losers, the junkies, the nerds, the gays, the violent, the criminals, the crippled, the insane. Write honestly, with hope if you can find it, with fury and hate if you cannot, with the voice they've tried to steal from you. The only ones who can't speak are the dead.

Theme: Outsiders and Outcasts

Dates:

Posting Opens: 30th November, 2025 12:00 PM Central Time
Posting Closes: 14th December, 2025 12:00 PM Central Time
Results Decided: 28th December, 2025 12:00 PM Central Time

To Enter:

Post your entry to the site with tag "2000", using the normal URL you would like. This page must be posted by you (or, if it is a collaboration, one of the partners). Any form of text-based entry (prose, poetry, essay, research paper etc) is allowed. Pieces that are primarily audio/visual and would be sorted into Hall One are not allowed.

Do not post before posting opens; this will result in a disqualification!

To Win:

Winners will not be decided by upvote total. Instead, at the end of the posting period we will be opening a nomination thread where users will post their top five favorite entries, ranked in order. Contest winners will be calculated via users' nominations, with first place votes being worth 5 points, second place 4, and so on. The link to the thread will appear here at the end of the posting period.

The post that has the highest nomination total at the end of the voting period will be given the UR-0.00 slot in the next wing. The nine runners up will be given UR-1.00 slot, then UR-2.00, and so on until UR-9.00. All remaining entries will be sorted chronologically.

Rules:

Be good to each other, seriously.
No shenanigans.
- Examples of shenanigans include, but are in no way limited to:
  - Downvoting all of your competitors' work within minutes of them being posted
  - Spamming people with PMs about your work
  - Spurring Malicious Upvoting/Downvoting, whether on your work or anyone else's
  - If you're not sure if something counts as shenanigans, then it probably does, but feel free to ask one of the organizers.
Nominations and voting should be based on the merits of the article alone, not whether or not you believe it deserves to win the contest. Theme-related disqualification is determined by the contest marshals. Voting on a piece based on your desire to see it win or lose the contest is grounds for disqualification.
One entry per user
Collaborations are allowed, but that will count as the one entry for all participants
Pre-existing drafts are allowed, so long as they have never been posted to the wiki
The theme shall be interpreted very broadly. So long as you can explain how your work relates to the theme as a concept, in any interpretation, it'll likely be accepted. The theme is here to inspire, not constrain. If you're not sure if it'll count, feel free to ask one of the contest marshals listed below.
Edits to works are allowed.
Contest entries will undergo normal deletion processes.
All Contest Marshals have the ability to disqualify entries for violations of the above-listed rules, egregiously poor sportsmanship not otherwise enumerated, or failure to fit the theme. All decisions are appealable to rumetzen, zipzipskins, and/or destinysday.