#and thank you also to the mods of this event for all the effort they put into making this happen!

[solalunar-eclipse]

Ball & Chain of My Own Making

Written as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bang 2024, hosted by @sthbigbang!

Summary: Set in the Sonic the Comic (Fleetway Publications) universe. Now that Robotnik's grasp on the planet has finally been removed, the world is beginning to recover. During this process, Sonic goes to meet up with his old friend, Porker Lewis, on the Floating Island. Unfortunately, they're long overdue for a conversation…and it's going to happen whether he wants it to or not.

Wonderful art (may contain spoilers!) by:

@eosomit (GORGEOUS ART BY EOSOMIT HERE) @pikafleetsyolo (FANTASTIC ART BY PIKAFLEETS HERE)

AO3 Link

Wooden scaffolding arched towards the bright blue sky, free of smog for the first time in years. The foundations of future homes spread out across the land of the Emerald Hill Zone, built atop the rubble and ashes of the original village, proving that soon, the people who once lived here would be back and better than ever before.

A sudden gust of wind rattled the scaffolds, making them shake but not crumble under its force—because after all, this was no ordinary wind. This was the controlled tailwind created by the high-octane racing of one Sonic the Hedgehog, Hero of Mobius, reaching speeds even faster than his namesake.

He skidded to a stop in the midst of the construction, admiring the view around him. It was good to finally see the world rebuilding now that Robotnik had fallen…this had been just a dream for far too long, so to have it become tangible reality, something he could reach out and touch, was downright awesome.

After a few moments, he spotted one of his closest friends, Miles “Tails” Prower—to him just Tails—helping to push a high-up beam into a slightly better position with the assistance of his namesake tails, which spun like the blades of a helicopter.

“Hey, pal, you got anything ya need taking care of ‘round here?” Sonic yelled up to him. “Because you know if you do, it’ll be done before you’re finished saying so!” he finished, winking up at the fox.

Tails flew down from his place atop the framework, landing neatly in front of Sonic. “I’m afraid that was actually the last piece of work I had on my list for now! I think I’m going to go help out Johnny with his staff—he says it’s been on the blink lately, and I thought it surely couldn’t be much harder than that time I helped you repair your plane!” He beckoned happily for Sonic to walk alongside him as the two headed back to their current base of operations, and the hedgehog did so without protest.

“Hmh.” Sonic replied eloquently, folding his arms and frowning slightly. “Amy and Tekno are still out too, yeah?”

“They are…” Tails looked up at his friend for a moment, before his eyes widened with an idea. “Hey, there has to be a couple of malfunctioning badniks left to take out somewhere, right?”

Sonic sighed. “Not for a hundred miles—and believe me, I’ve looked.”

The fox’s twin tails flicked nervously. “I mean, the only work we have going on right now is this whole relocation project…the thing is, I don’t think any other baddies are quite ready to crawl out of the shadows so soon after Robotnik vanished.” he explained.

Sonic abruptly snapped his fingers. “Hey, there’s an idea! I’m gonna take the Tornado up to the Floating Island, see how that end of the relocation’s shaking out up there! Seeya, gotta scram!”

And with that, he was gone, Tails’s call of “bye!” (accompanied by an understanding smile he didn’t see) just barely reaching him.

Within moments, Sonic was already in the cockpit of his trusty biplane, flipping switches with the muscle memory of someone who had piloted it a hundred times before. His eyes roamed over the controls, then shifted to the shining red paint that adorned it—

…oh no…what have I done?

The Hero of Mobius abruptly froze, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly as he remembered an earlier version of this very plane, crumbling and burning before his eyes—the fire had burned all around him, smoke choking the air, but this time not from one of Robotnik’s factories, instead it—

Sonic shook his head, gritting his teeth and forcing his quills to relax. “Everything worked out just fine,” he muttered. “He’s gone now. Amy and Tekno said so.”

With a few sharp movements, the plane’s engine was running smoothly, and Sonic taxied it down the runway and took off with ease. He only needed a moment to remember the controls, and then his memory of flying between islands on his adventures took over at last. 

As he climbed in altitude, he banked the plane around so it was pointing straight towards the Floating Island. While Tails had added a map to the Tornado, making it easier than ever to navigate, Sonic didn’t need any of that. He might not have…one particular effect from the Chaos Emeralds any longer, but that didn’t mean their energy would ever stop being intertwined with his being in a way he neither could nor cared to explain. 

He glanced briefly over the side of the biplane, enjoying the sight of Emerald Hill’s in-progress town below, now resembling a child’s plaything more than the towering structures he’d seen Tails working on earlier. 

As Sonic flew further, he passed over rivers that were running cleaner than before (though their banks still bore remnants of sludge) and the half-destroyed ruins of several of Robotnik’s factories. He smirked with a grim sort of satisfaction as he spotted a particularly torn-up building, stamped with that grinning logo all mangled and broken, unable to churn out even one more ounce of material to support the now-toppled Empire.

Thankfully for his notoriously short patience, it didn’t take Sonic long at all to reach the Floating Island. Avoiding the populated Mushroom Hill Zone for the time being, he instead circled the plane around over a large grassy clearing just outside the Hidden Palace, coming in for an (in his opinion) impressively smooth landing.

Sonic hopped out of the biplane after cutting its motor, grinning broadly. Any second now…

“SONIC!” a voice bellowed from within, accompanied by the sound of heavy footfalls. “What on Mobius are you doing here?”

Knuckles the Echidna stepped out of the shadows of the Hidden Palace, his arms folded over his chest and his ever-present glower meeting Sonic’s expectations perfectly. “You’d better not have shown up just to cause trouble. The Emerald Hill folk are in the middle of packing up their entire lives, and I am already at my limit with all the chaos around here.”

Sonic swiped under his nose, his smirk growing wider. “You’ve gotta be having some real trouble guarding all those Chaos Emeralds then, huh? I can always take care of them if you’re not up to it!”

Knuckles’s jaw tightened. “Sonic, I swear—“

“Relax, knucklehead!” he interrupted, cutting Knuckles off before he could get truly enraged. (Unfortunately, the continued presence of his smug smile may not have particularly helped, but he was more than fine with that.) “You should know I’m not here to mess anything up! Just popped up here to check out how things are going on your end. I don’t expect them to be moving quite as fast as my folks, obviously, but I figured if anyone could help speed the process up a little, it’d be yours truly.”

The echidna appeared momentarily torn between the promise of getting complete peace and quiet on his island sooner, or getting marginally more peace and quiet right now by hurling Sonic bodily off the island. Eventually, he just fixed the hero with his most stern glare, before pointing wordlessly to the door of the Hidden Palace.

Sonic snickered, strolling casually into the building and enjoying the irate grumbling behind him. Knuckles was just too easy to rile up, and his reactions were always fantastic.

“Oh, Knuckles, did you find out who it wa—Sonic!”

The hedgehog in question nearly jumped in surprise, but managed to conceal it beneath a smooth pivot to face the speaker…only to smile broadly once he registered just who it was. 

Sitting at one of the consoles around the massive room was none other than Porker Lewis, his old friend and former fellow Freedom Fighter. Porker practically leapt out of his chair, dashing over to greet Sonic more properly. “It’s just wonderful to see you! How’s everything going?”

Sonic flashed his trademark grin, not-so-subtly preening in response to Porker’s unfiltered enthusiasm. “You know me, always chillin’. Howzabout yourself, Lewis? Enjoying that island life?” he added, winking.

Porker smiled wryly, shaking his head. “I’m liking it a lot more now that Robotnik’s gone. Getting to help repair the technology Knuckles’s ancestors left behind is important work, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not nearly as intense as trying to topple a dictatorship.”

The hero’s face didn’t move a millimeter, but somehow, his smile felt so much more strained. “Yeah. It’s…good that’cha can just work on that now instead of having to put up with badniks all day, every day.”

Porker’s own expression faltered briefly, before he brightened up again, albeit more mellow than before. “Well, I’m sure you didn’t just come here to stand around and talk! I’m supposed to be repairing some of the zoom tubes in the Hydrocity Zone today, but I can leave that for later if you want to have a look around Mushroom Hill together.”

“Psh, no way! It’s been ages since I got to give Hydrocity the old run-around, I’ve gotta see if I can beat my fastest time down there! You wouldn’t deprive your old buddy Sonic a chance to do that, wouldja?” The blue hedgehog bounced into a more dynamic stance, one fist held in front of himself and his other hand thrown back as though he were about to spindash right this very second.

“If you tear up this chamber, I will throw you into the ocean.” Knuckles huffed, making Sonic scoff and straighten back up to face the serious guardian. At that very moment, Sonic’s eyes caught on exactly what Knuckles was leaning against—specifically, one of the switchboards in front of the Emeralds’ storage column. 

“Forget it, Porker…you’ve already done more than your share.”

“Don’t mention her, buddy. Lately she’s been driving me up the wall!”

“Whaaaa—!”

(The rock Sonic had been leaning against crumbled beneath him without warning, and he was sent pitching backwards into the column of pure Chaos energy. It surged through him, bright and powerful…and…violent…)

“Whoa, hey, Sonic? Sonic? You with me?”

“Agh!” He jumped backwards, immediately dropping into a fighting stance…before seeing that it was just Knuckles in front of him, one gloved hand raised as though he’d just been waving it in Sonic’s field of view. “Geez, Knucklehead, warn a guy next time you decide to stick your hand in his face, huh?”

“…you didn’t even react after I said I was gonna…chuck you off the island and all that. I didn’t actually mean it, you know. You might be annoying, but I’m not just going to let you drown.” the echidna muttered, still watching Sonic warily, as though he were about to space out again at any minute.

And Sonic wasn’t having any of that.

“Tch, I was just daydreaming about new ways to spindash that smug look ‘a yours right off your face.” he retorted, folding his arms defiantly. “I don’t hafta dignify every smart-aleck thing you say with a comeback, do I?”

Knuckles rubbed his brow, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Whatever. Porker, can you please take him anywhere that isn’t here? Mushroom Hill, Hydrocity, either way, just…ugh.”

Porker laughed sympathetically, walking up to stand next to Sonic, now with some papers in his arms and some tools on a belt. “I certainly can. So, Hydrocity, is it, then?” he asked the blue hero lightly.

“You know it!” Sonic gave him a thumbs up, before following his old friend to one of the doorways leading out of the Emerald Chamber. 

The two friends traveled down a short hallway, which led to a shaft so deep Sonic couldn’t even begin to see the bottom. Stairs spiraled around its outside, while a pole speared down the center, attached to the ceiling at one end and presumably the floor at the other.

Porker looked over at Sonic. “How about a race? You on the stairs, and me on the pole?” he asked. 

Sonic’s expression split into what had to be the biggest grin he’d worn yet. “You do realize you’re gonna lose embarrassingly, right?”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I can’t at least try, does it?” Porker insisted, his hands in his pockets and the set of his shoulders easy. Internally, Sonic appreciated the sight of his friend relaxed and happy. It had been far too long since he’d last seen Porker like this, after all.

The Hero of Mobius dashed over to the top of the stairs, settling into a sprinter’s starting position. “You sure you’re ready for this, Sonic?” the engineer sked, smiling cheekily as he grabbed onto the pole with both gloved hands.

“Ha! I’ve been ready, Lewis, you oughta know that by now!”

“Alright then!” Porker announced, to the otherwise empty room. “Three! Two! One! Go!”

Immediately, the former Freedom Fighter pushed off the platform and began to slide down the pole—but that could never compare to the power of pure Sonic speed. The instant the sound “go” hit his ears, Sonic tore off down the stairs so fast that anyone watching wouldn’t have been able to make out his features, only seeing the blue blur that had earned him yet another of his many monikers.

Sonic couldn’t help but beam as the wind whistled through his quills and his sneakers pounded on the staircase, loving the thrill of adrenaline that came from riding the line between landing each step as quickly as possible and tumbling into an uncontrolled fall. His agility had to be perfect to pull this off…and of course, it was. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, after all.

Once he hit the bottom, he looked up, waiting for Porker to appear. Thankfully, he’d only just started tapping his foot by the time the engineer came into view.

“Took you long enough!” Sonic smirked up at him, his arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

Porker smiled back. “Well, pardon me for not wanting to free-fall out of control! Not all of us are invincible Heroes of Mobius—that’s your job, after all!”

Sonic hesitated briefly, something about the title resonating oddly in his chest. “Say, speaking of which…it was…a little heroic, kinda, to be the one to clap Robotnik in cuffs like that. How’d you manage it?”

“Oh! Well, it wasn’t much, really. I was just trying to help some of the Emerald Hill folk evacuate out of the Mushroom Hill Zone, when I saw Robotnik trying to escape that massive fight you and Knuckles had with Dr. Zachary! I managed to rally a few of the braver people, and together we got the drop on him and cuffed him before he knew what happened,” Porker explained, beginning to walk into the zone as he spoke. “We were only able to get him because he was so thrown off guard by actually losing his grip on power for once—it was an opportunity we wouldn’t have gotten again! I may have left the Freedom Fighters, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night if I’d let him get away, you know?”

Sonic could feel his confusion showing on his face, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to stop it. “You…I guess, but…”

“Is everything alright?” Porker was frowning in concern, and that was enough to convince Sonic that this conversation wasn’t worth pursuing any longer. 

He laced his hands behind his head casually. “Yeah, sure! You know me, since when am I not?”

“…” When Sonic snuck a peek at his friend out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Porker still looked uneasy. 

Luckily for him, a Bugernaut suddenly swooped down at Porker, forcing him to duck out of the way. Within seconds, Sonic had curled into a ball, smashing the badnik and landing with ease. He quickly scanned the area for any more, spotting a few patrolling in a line farther ahead. While Robotnik was gone, his influence clearly still lingered, even up here on the Floating Island.

Briefly, he glanced back at his friend, who shot him a quick smile and a thumbs-up—which was all he needed to tear off in pursuit. It was a matter of a single jump to reach the nearest platform, and then only one more leap to bounce from badnik to badnik in a line, freeing the various little critters inside.

Sonic landed on an even higher platform, crouching by the edge to scan the ground below for Porker. He could jump down easily…but that would mean more awkward conversation. And when his alternative was scouting ahead and taking out any leftover badniks so Porker wouldn’t have to deal with them? It was hardly a choice at all.

He waved to get Porker’s attention, before jerking a thumb over his shoulder and holding up his fists like he was about to get into a cartoonish fight. The former Freedom Fighter gave him a friendly salute back, before turning back to his path towards the busted zoom tube. Sonic let out a breath that, had anyone else heard, he would have denied having been a sigh. Then, in a blink, he wasn’t there at all, only a blue streak of light marking the path he’d taken. 

Thankfully, he did turn out to have a genuine excuse to rush on ahead, as he found several more clusters of badniks after that initial line of Bugernauts. While Porker followed the lower paths, Sonic took every shortcut he could find in an effort to cover as much ground as possible. However, being thorough did mean he had to make some…unfortunate choices, as well. Hanging from a slow rope pulley above water wasn’t exactly his idea of fun, and neither was the promise of dropping into the water to clear out some aquatic badniks, but let nobody ever say that the Hero of Mobius and leader of the Freedom Fighters wasn’t committed to what he did.

With a gulp of air, Sonic opened his hands and let himself drop, curling into a ball and crashing directly into the water. Thankfully, this particular area seemed to have a fast current to it, meaning that he merely had to keep himself curled up and let the water turn him into a badnik-busting buzzsaw. 

Not really loving the lack of air down here, Sonic thought to himself impatiently, finally uncurling in search of an air bubble once he was reasonably sure the room was clear. Now where would…

There!

A small imperfection in the floor of the area had allowed a tiny crack to form in the material. At that exact point, the liquid could freely drip out—but more importantly, air could flow in. Happily, it didn’t take long at all for an air bubble to appear that was big enough for Sonic to use, and he inhaled the oxygen inside eagerly.

His energy restored, the hedgehog made his way over to a slightly narrower section of pipe, letting the current sweep him along once more. Annoyingly, the water turbines were still active, but it was a small price to pay for his otherwise quick progress, and he could easily avoid them with the help of the support struts used to help the pipe hold its shape. Besides, before long, he was spindashing up a ramp and out of the water, soaring high into the air before landing with perfect ease. 

After a bit of casual platform-hopping, Sonic spied Porker a little ways away, kneeling by a strange mechanism and seemingly inspecting it. This must’ve been the fix-it job he had to do, Sonic mused, before leaping down to join his friend alongside the ancient travel system. 

“So, how’s it going?” he asked, making poor Porker yelp and drop his screwdriver with a clatter, startled.

“Sonic!” he scolded, but his smile severely diminished any attempt at properly convincing the hedgehog to regret his actions. “You startled me!”

“I have eyes, I noticed,” Sonic quipped, shifting to lean casually against the wall. “You didn’t answer my question though, you really gonna leave a guy hanging like that? And here I thought we were friends.” he complained, wearing a faux-devastated expression.

Porker stared at him blankly for a moment, before recognition lit up his eyes. “Oh, yes, of course! It really is on you for making me forget, though.” Sonic scoffed lightly, but otherwise didn’t speak, leaving room for Porker to continue.

“It’s frankly quite a simple fix,” the engineer began. “While the tubes themselves are largely made of stone, the mechanical parts that create the vacuum necessary to enable this kind of rapid travel are much more delicate and therefore prone to failure. That’s why the tubes here aren’t working anymore—there must have been a malfunction in this area. Now all I need to do is open it up—” and just as he said this, he heaved a panel off the side of the structure in front of him, revealing an incomprehensible mess of pistons, cogs, and other unidentifiable bits and bobs. “—and figure out what's going on in here.”

“Huh. Why’d the echidnas decide to stick this thing all the way down here instead of up with everything else in the Emerald chamber? Somehow I don’t get the sense they were particularly in it for the sightseeing opportunity.” Sonic remarked, moving to lean against a different piece of the machine’s casing.

Porker’s laugh rang out from the metal walls of the structure, having already slid mostly inside to take a closer look. “Beats me! Knuckles and I are still having quite a time working on translating the ancient language used on most of the schematics for this place. We just got the blueprints for this all sorted out yesterday—it only became a major priority when the tubes stopped functioning. I haven’t even had a chance to dig through more of what we think are records, since most of our focus has been on the way the Floating Island works anyhow.”

Sonic smirked at the sound of Porker’s evident good mood. “Ol’ Knucklehead better have those blueprints all translated correctly, or else he’s gonna wind up going backwards instead of forwards next time he hops in one a’ these!”

“Oh goodness, I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that!” Porker still sounded amused, but also a little concerned. Not ideal. “At least they’d be working again, I suppose!”

“Well, pal, tell ya what. ‘Cause I’m such a kind and generous soul, I’ll give the tubes a spin once you’ve got them all set up! Just make sure to double-check your screws first—I’m not about to have Knuckles laughing at me if I get closely acquainted with the nearest rock, alright?”

“I’ll certainly do my best!” the engineer replied brightly. “Wait—oh, Sonic, I think I’ve found the problem!” he added, shifting around some more inside the machine.

“Forreal? Huh, I guess all that studying must’ve been worth it if you can find the problem that fast!” Sonic remarked, pushing off from the metal plating and strolling around to where Porker was.

“It’s a relatively simple issue too, thank goodness,” his friend continued, “there’s a hole in the main conduit for the pressurized air. In the long term, this pipe should really be replaced, but for now, I think a simple patch job will suffice.”

“What, and you just happen to have ‘pipe patcher’ on ya at all times?” Sonic asked, snickering slightly. “You go to dinner at someone’s house and think ‘oh no, better not leave my pipe patches at home’?”

Porker’s sigh echoed in the machine’s chamber. “It’s really not all that special, all I’m using is duct tape. So long as it makes a proper seal—which I’m being careful to do now—it should hold well enough for us to go back and get a proper replacement. And duct tape is an essential part of any engineer’s toolkit, especially when they’re going to do some engineering work. Which is exactly what we came down here to do.”

“We?” the hedgehog asked. “S’far as I can see, you’re the one doing all the fix-it jobs around here, I’m just tagging along to clear out badniks and have a good time. Wouldn’t wanna be inside that thingamajig anyway, you can barely even move in there!”

Porker made a movement that seemed to suggest a shrug. “It’s really not that bad,” he said, beginning to extricate himself from the mess of machinery. “I honestly find it quite comfortable—though I must admit there have been a couple of times when the sentries didn’t think to warn me politely before tapping me…I earned myself quite a few bruises before they learned not to do that.” Now fully outside, he shook his head with a slightly tired smile. “At least they apologized afterwards, I suppose.”

“Aw, man, I wish I’d been there! I would’ve paid good money to see that!” Sonic clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, grinning good-naturedly. “So, we gotta head back and grab that piece, yeah?”

Porker nodded in agreement. “Yes, we do, but first—”

But by the time the word “yes” had left his mouth, Sonic was already in the tube.

“Aw yeah!” he whooped to himself, rocketing upwards at a breathtaking speed. “This is the good stuff!”

Suddenly, however, he noticed that his speed was…beginning to slow down. He frowned. The zoom tubes normally didn’t do that at all, instead letting him blast out at full speed. This wasn’t a new problem Porker would have to fix, was it?

Sonic felt his quills begin to raise as he continued to decelerate, scraping uselessly against the near-frictionless surfaces of the inside of the tubes. The air grew weaker and weaker, struggling to push him up a vertical passage, and the Hero of Mobius felt a cold chill settle in his stomach. 

He curled up just a little tighter, trying to use the movement to regain even a fraction of forward momentum, and that was enough to get him through the bend onto a horizontal plane, but then—

—he stopped moving.

Entirely.

Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing on Mobius, could no longer move.

~~~

Porker Lewis, on the other hand, was running as quickly as he possibly could.

He’d wanted to warn Sonic that he needed to check the air pressure first, make sure everything was at least moderately in working order before he let his friend give the zoom tubes a test run, but while Sonic’s thoughts moved much faster than his own, that didn’t necessarily mean he had a greater amount of caution. Now, Porker had no idea where Sonic was, nor whether he’d even made it out of the tubes at all.

Still, the engineer pushed himself to follow the path upwards, in spite of the increasing difficulty he met with as he climbed. More precarious platforms, more obstacles, and wider gaps had to be dealt with, slowing Porker down as he struggled to navigate, but he refused to let the tube out of his sight. He had to be coming to a bend or junction soon at this rate…

And then, he saw it. The tube made a right angle, running along the ceiling of the Hydrocity Zone, and within it, just visible through the glass paneling, was a ball of blue.

Quickly, Porker scanned the area. The panel was held in place by a frame, which could be easily removed with his screwdriver, but getting to the tube in the first place would be rather more difficult. Further examination revealed that there were small crevices and ledges on the wall adjacent to it that he could use to climb up, but staying in position without falling and injuring himself would be complicated, especially since he would essentially need to turn around while on the wall to properly remove the paneling. 

Still, it was the best he could do, given the situation. Removing the screwdriver from his tool belt and holding it in his mouth, Porker began to clamber up the side of the rock wall, moving as quickly as he could without putting himself in danger. He would be no use at all to Sonic with a broken leg, of course.

Speaking of him—“Sonic! I’m going to unscrew the paneling! You’ll be out shortly!” Porker shouted, forcing his voice as loud as it could possibly go.

If his friend replied, the engineer couldn't hear it. Nerves gripped his heart as he forced himself to climb faster, reaching the top soon after. Now came the difficult part; he braced himself with a hand against the pipe, before carefully shuffling his feet in a manner that would allow him to turn around and press his back against the rock wall.

The only thing keeping him from falling now was the strength of his arm as he pushed against the tube.

Carefully, Porker began to unscrew the frame bit by bit, wiggling the screws out of their housing one by one and letting them drop to the floor. After the third screw, his supporting arm began to tremble, but he refused to let it falter. Not when Sonic was counting on him.

The fourth screw dropped. At first, the frame refused to move, but a good whack with the screwdriver fixed that—followed by a sudden flinch from Porker as the glass panel dropped and shattered on the ground below.

“Good heavens, that’ll be quite the repair job…” he muttered to himself, before recalling exactly what the situation was at the moment.

“Sonic? Sonic, can you hear me?” he called, craning his neck in an effort to get a better look at the insides of the tube. He could see the ball of blue spines pretty well, actually, but something wasn’t quite right.

“…oh.” Porker murmured quietly.

Sonic was shaking.

He would have to get the hedgehog out all by himself, but how? He certainly couldn’t reach into the tube, not from this angle, and Sonic was clearly unable to move. The only thing he did seem capable of, as a matter of fact, was bristling his spines.

Wait. If Sonic had his spines raised, then that meant they could catch on something, yes? Porker began to hurriedly shrug off his jacket, only pausing to swap hands on the pipe once his screwdriver was back in his belt. Frowning in an effort to better gauge the distance, he swung the jacket back and forth once, twice, and then up into the tube—and thank goodness, at least one thing had gone right in this whole mess, when the cloth caught securely on Sonic’s spines.

Porker pulled as hard as he could, and for once the near-frictionless surface of the zoom tubes proved useful when his friend moved along with little resistance. Uncomfortably slowly, given the awkward angle, Sonic’s curled-up form slid further and further forward until finally, he slipped out of the opening.

What Porker had forgotten, however, was that Sonic had weight, and weight affected both balance and gravity.

What this meant, in practice, was that Porker very nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket fighting to keep them both from falling.

Even then, he didn’t succeed for very long, pitching forward and off the face of the wall soon afterwards. At the very least, his fall was more controlled, so that when he landed, he merely sprained his ankle instead of breaking it. (Happily, he was also able to avoid the shattered glass on the ground. Things would have gotten much more complicated if he hadn’t, and he was already about at his limit for complications.)

He ought to be thankful for small mercies, he supposed, because that at least meant the pain wasn’t so excruciating that he couldn’t check on his friend. 

“Sonic? Sonic, are you al—are you hurt?” he asked quickly, pulling himself along the ground towards the hero, who had uncurled and was now on his hands and knees, with his head hanging between his arms.

For a moment, Sonic didn’t respond at all, and Porker felt a pang shoot through him. Just a second later, though, the hedgehog sat up, raising an eyebrow at him cockily. “Am I hurt? You’re the one who can’t curl up into a ball here, I’m not the one you should be checking on.” 

“I wasn’t just talking about the fall. I meant before that, too.” Porker insisted, unwilling to let it go quite so easily.

“Tch, what, me getting stuck in the tube? Just don’t tell Knucklehead, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

Porker felt his stomach turn uncomfortably. He really, really didn’t want to push this, but the thought of Sonic pretending that nothing had happened sat even worse with him. Shakily, he inhaled once, then sighed, and felt his shoulders tense up as he prepared to speak again.

“Sonic.” Porker insisted. “I saw you shaking with my own two eyes. I can’t just let that go.”

“What, me? Shaking?” Sonic scoffed. “You of all people should know that the Hero of Mobius doesn’t shake, pal.”

The engineer frowned…and then abruptly his expression softened, as something that Sonic had just said caught his attention. “No, I get it. The Hero of Mobius doesn’t shake, you’re right. But, well, my old friend Sonic, from way back in Green Hill…he’s allowed to get scared in front of me, I think. Whether or not he thinks he should.”

“Uh, you sure you didn’t hit your head in that fall, Lewis?” Sonic asked, now the one to squint over at his friend in confusion. “In case you forgot, this speedy blue hedgehog—y’know, the one called Sonic—is the Hero of Mobius.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest for emphasis.

Porker took another deep breath subtly, trying his best to keep from getting exasperated. “That’s true. But being the Hero of Mobius is a job, and being Sonic just…is. You’re Sonic all the time, but you’re only the Hero of Mobius when you want to be. And you don’t have to be in front of me.”

“You sure about that one? ‘Cause last I checked, only one of us was up to being a hero.” Sonic shot back.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he froze, his eyes widening slightly and his teeth snapping together so hard they clicked in the suddenly heavy silence.

“Porker—we can—just forget that happened, ‘kay? Apparently my mouth moves as fast as the rest of me sometimes, heh.” 

Porker gave Sonic a surprisingly flat look, making the hedgehog’s poor attempt at humor fizzle out into nothingness. His grin twisted into a grimace, and his hands balled into fists on the floor as he avoided Porker’s eyes.

Well, at least now he’s hiding his emotions less, the former Freedom Fighter thought to himself, internally sighing.

“Sonic.” he said softly, and while his friend didn’t flinch, his fingers did tighten noticeably.

“I’m not upset. Or—well—I am, but not at you. I just don’t like that you feel you have to be a hero around me all the time. I know we were fighting Robotnik for so long, it’s kind of hard to be anything else…but before that, we were just friends, stumbling our way through life together.”

Porker sighed, allowing himself a bittersweet smile. “I’d like to go back to being that way, at least to some extent, now that the war is over.” He hesitated briefly, before continuing, “If you don’t want to though, for whatever reason, I’ll understand.”

Sonic laughed, but his eyes were too wide for it to seem genuine. “Hey, what? Of course we’re friends, there’s no way I’d wanna change that! Why on Mobius would you ever think I would?”

“It’s…difficult to explain.” Porker began, picking up a chunk of debris and worrying circles into it with his thumb. “Sometimes it feels like when you look at me, you’re seeing just another civilian to protect, instead of, well, me.”

“Well, that’s not it at all!” Sonic straightened up boldly. “It’s totally different—I’m just making sure you don’t have to deal with the difficult stuff anymore after we—after you, y’know, got stuck on, uh, Little Planet.”

“Sonic, just because I was too stressed out to continue fighting in a war doesn’t mean I’m too distraught to live my life, or to help my friends when they could use a hand!” the engineer explained. “Besides, living here on the Floating Island has done wonders for me, I’d say.”

Sonic had sported a strangely skeptical expression for the first part, but when he finally spoke up, it wasn’t in response to that at all. “Was it really good enough for you that you were able to handle Robotnik?” he asked, frowning genuinely.

Porker stared blankly at his friend for a few moments as several things suddenly slotted into place. “Is that what you meant when you asked me how I was able to cuff him earlier?”

Sonic’s sudden eagerness to look away and shift positions, combined with a short “Eh, it’s whatever. Never mind.” told him all he needed to know.

He bit back his first instinct, which was to get upset that Sonic essentially seemed to view him as an invalid, no longer capable of functioning in the face of difficult situations. Getting upset wouldn’t help here—he’d known Sonic long enough to be certain that if he got angry, Sonic’s temper would flare up to match. Instead, he struggled to work out how best to explain his current situation to his friend. 

Porker knew that Sonic had gone through a difficult process when he’d decided to leave the Freedom Fighters, and had taken some time to come around to the fact that not everybody had his level of fortitude and resilience when it came to coping with difficult situations. However, it seemed like Sonic had understood Porker’s choice to leave as a permanent “off” switch on his abilities, instead of the truth, which was that the scales of “desire for freedom” and “fear of lasting damage” had simply tipped in the other direction, without any weight being removed from the former.

Suddenly, he was jolted from his musings by the voice of the hedgehog in question. “Listen, how about we head back to Hidden Palace and grab whatever parts you need? That way you can show me around some more, yeah?”

Slowly but surely, Porker got to his feet, sighing tiredly and trying not to wince at a twinge from his ankle. “Hang on, I just wanted to explain one thing first. You mind if I talk your ear off for just a moment?” He shot Sonic a half-smile, and that seemed to do the trick.

“Sure thing, pal. Hit me.” he replied carefully, moving to lean against the wall.

“I may have assumed this was more obvious than it actually was, but…I was always scared. Even when you first asked me to join the Freedom Fighters, I was frightened as anything.” Porker began, cringing internally as Sonic tensed up once again. “But the thing was,” he hurried to add, “I believed in the better future you talked about more than I felt afraid. So I pushed myself to join because I wanted to help make a world where people like me didn’t have to be so scared all the time, and that was enough to keep me going.

“But then…when I was held on Little Planet for so long…” Porker trailed off, memories of wire biting into his arms and endless examinations flashing before his eyes briefly. He blinked rapidly and squeezed the rock in his hand tighter in an effort to dispel the images—only to look up into an expression on Sonic that was emptier than any he’d ever seen before.

The engineer sighed and shook his head, smiling ruefully. “After that, I was so worried about it happening again that I couldn’t contribute to the team like I wanted, and, well, you know the rest.” He paused for a moment, composing his next sentence in his head. “I think there was one thing I should’ve said to you back then, but didn’t, because I thought it was obvious.”

“Yeah?” Sonic’s voice was perfectly measured, perfectly even.

“I don’t blame you for what happened. I don’t even see how I could—I knew the risks, I knew Mobius had to be kept safe, and I made my choice. I mean, in the end, it all worked out too. If that was really what had to happen to start the chain of events that led to the Empire of Metallix being defeated, then I can’t even say I regret it.”

“Porker.” Sonic marched over, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Now I know for a fact you hit your head in that fall. Either that or I need to get my ears checked, because I know I didn’t just hear you say you’re okay with the fact that we all left you there.”

“What else am I supposed to say?” he asked, genuinely. “We were in a difficult situation, not to mention a dangerous profession. Awkward choices and bad experiences were bound to happen eventually. All things considered, I escaped without any serious physical damage and got the space I needed to work on healing mentally. Things could have gone a whole lot worse—”

“But they also could’ve gone better!” Sonic barked. “We left you there! We all could’ve gone back with you, fought off the Metallix together!”

“And left the planet defenseless against Robotnik? That would’ve been terribly dangerous.” Porker forced himself to keep his posture open, hoping that having something else to focus on would help him feel less stunned that his friend was on the verge of yelling at him. “Besides, it’s equally possible that the Metallix would have overpowered us all, seeing as we’d be stuck there for a month, and then who would have saved us from them?”

“What, so are you telling me you’re fine with the way things turned out?” the hedgehog snapped.

“Yes and no,” Porker replied, hating how stiff his voice had become, but unable to search for any better words, “I certainly would have preferred to not be trapped on Little Planet for a month, but since I was, and we were able to destroy the empire that I was stuck with, I don’t really have anything left to be angry about. I may be upset that it happened to me, but I’ve decided that I don’t resent anyone for the way it happened.”

“Yeah? Well, good for you, but not all of us feel that way, y’know.” Sonic spat.

Porker hesitated for a moment. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what his friend meant, but he wanted to check something first.

“Are you upset with me for going back?”

“Wh—f—why would I be mad at you?” Sonic looked like he was about to explode, face twisted into a snarl. “It’s the Metallix’s fault, for being scummy enough to treat you like they did! It’s Robotnik’s fault, for making those machines in the first place, and for making a Mobius where there needed to be Freedom Fighters at all! And—and it’s on me for asking you to join the Freedom Fighters, because then this’d never have happened!”

The walls of Hydrocity Zone rang with the echo of Sonic’s outburst.

“…we’re done here.” the hedgehog muttered, turning away.

“N-n-no, we’re not.” Porker insisted, still gripping the rock, now so tightly that his hands shook. Sonic whipped around, his eyes hard, but Porker pushed onwards as quickly as he could. “S-Sonic, you couldn’t have possibly known this would happen. You may be a hero, but you’re not the Omni-Viewer—you can’t kn-know or do everything. And that’s fine!” he added, quickly, seeing Sonic’s quills begin to rise. “I don’t, I don’t expect you to, and anyone who does is being absurd, frankly. All you knew when you asked me to join was that Robotnik needed to be s-stopped, and that I was smart enough to help. And all you could—could do when I went back to Little Planet was make an impossible choice, and if you’re sorry that I got hurt, then I’m sorry I put you in a position to choose between me and everyone else.

“I don’t know if you really do r-regret asking me to join the Freedom Fighters—and if you do, I can try to understand why, but I have to inform you that I disagree whole-heartedly. You would n-not have survived fighting Robotnik on your own, you needed others by your side, and you were a big enough person to a-admit that in spite of the fact that I’m sure you would have preferred otherwise. If you regret asking me, then do you regret asking Johnny, or Tails? Do you regret bringing all of us into this? Because let me tell you, if I have to choose between a future where I am traumatized but alive, or a future where I never met the Metallix and you are gone, I would choose the former every time!”

Porker’s legs wobbled beneath him, and he lowered himself to the ground quickly, breathing hard and fast. “S-sorry, sorry for my harsh tone at the end there.” he apologized. “I didn’t m-mean to get so worked up.”

“…Porker.” Sonic said, no longer facing him, his voice strangely quiet in a way the engineer had never heard before. “You’re—right. About all of it. I’m glad you said yes when I asked you to join. Without you, we’d never have saved Kintobor, or gotten all the gadgets we needed to fight. It just, you know. Like you said. We were friends, but I was also the leader. That made your safety my responsibility. And you know me, I don’t like to, well. Lose. Heh.” He laughed humorlessly, even as his hands twitched and shifted with surprising intensity. “When you’re the Hero of Mobius, and you don’t save someone. Anyone. But especially a friend. It makes a guy wonder if he still gets to call himself a hero. If he still…has that friend. After he couldn’t keep him from getting permanently hurt. You know.”

“I think I do know.” Porker replied, almost instantly, needing to make sure Sonic knew that this opening up, no matter how stilted, was the right thing to do. “And I know that his friend has been with him for a while. His friend has seen him save people so many times, over and over again, even without a reward. So, quite frankly, if there was ever a time when he didn’t save someone, that friend would not doubt for a second that he didn’t wish things had gone differently. But,” he added, “this friend would also care about him a lot. And his friend would feel terrible if it seemed, for even a second, that a choice that the friend made was something he was using to make himself feel worse, whether he thought he deserved it or not. Because his friend is, well, his friend, right? So of course that friend wouldn’t want him to torture himself using the thought of what happened. 

“After all, he may be a hero—an incredible hero, even—but he can’t do everything, and like I said earlier, that's okay. That’s why the rest of us were there, to help him be able to do everything with our help. And sometimes that meant we were in danger, just like him. But that was okay, because there was no place we’d rather be than by his side, helping to make the world a better place.”

A single drop of water wet the stone by Sonic’s feet.

“There’s—” he croaked, before cutting himself off and abruptly clearing his throat. “There’s nobody I would rather have had with me.”

“I’m glad.” Porker smiled gently, and hoped it carried through in his voice.

“Ugh, first Super, now this—what is it with me and coming to visit you that makes bad things happen?” Sonic groaned, finally turning around once again (and the engineer elected not to notice how he was still working to compose himself).

“Well, in the very, very long run, that was a good thing too, considering that Super’s EMP blast was what enabled us to defeat Robotnik.” Porker said.

“Oh, so you’re not upset about that either?” Sonic asked, voice caught halfway between sarcastic and hesitant.

“Sonic!” the engineer huffed. “Super’s transformation process is completely involuntary! It may be frightening in the moment, but I would never, ever blame you for his actions!”

“…good to know.” Sonic said simply. “Speakin’ of which, I saw you two put up some better walls around the Emerald chamber, good to see we won’t have any more falling accidents.” He finally turned around, his arms folded and smirk back in place. “Don’t wanna find out what Super Porker is like or anything.”

“I hope seeing the Emerald chamber again wasn’t what bothered you earlier.” Porker’s brow furrowed in concern. “I didn’t even consider how it might be an unpleasant place to be…”

Sonic’s smirk lessened just a fraction. 

“You know, you’re always free to talk about it if you’d like.” Porker said, but when Sonic scoffed, he already knew it was a lost cause.

“Listen, I’ve had more than enough ‘talking about it’ for one visit.” Sonic rolled his eyes and did exaggerated air quotes, but…

…‘for one visit’ wasn’t ’for a lifetime’. Maybe it wasn’t such a lost cause after all.

Porker decided to take pity on his friend at last. “Would you like to head back to Hidden Palace now? You can bother Knuckles some more while I find the part I need to repair the zoom tubes.” 

“Finally!” Sonic exclaimed. “As much as I appreciate a good cave adventure every now and then, I’d rather be somewhere I can actually see the sun. Come on, let’s get moving.” He began to walk back towards the entrance, making Porker hesitate and frown over at him.

“…you’re not going to scout on ahead again?”

Sonic looked over at him, surprise registering for the briefest of seconds before he relaxed, his usual smirk returning—albeit somewhat crookedly. “Nah. If any badniks haven’t learned their lesson by now, we can handle ‘em.”

Porker could feel himself smiling wider than he had all day, enough so that Sonic seemed to notice. “Shut your trap, pixel-brain.” he grumbled, folding his arms. “Haven’t we had enough sappy nonsense already?”

“Fair enough,” Porker admitted. “So, how’s the rebuilding process going back in Emerald Hill?”

“The new town’s looking better every day!” Sonic’s grin returned in full force. “It’s gonna be much more defensible, but it’s also just way better quality and more sturdy than before.”

“That’s fantastic.” Porker said, suddenly feeling as though a weight he hadn’t even noticed had been lifted off his chest. “As much as the hillfolk have appreciated Knuckles’s hospitality, they seem eager to get home.”

“It’ll be good to have them back.” Sonic sighed. “Seeing the world start to live a post-Robotnik life sure is something, huh?”

“It really is. Sometimes I wondered if we’d be fighting for the rest of our lives,” Porker smiled ruefully. “But I’m so happy that isn’t the case.”

They walked together in silence for about half a minute, giving them both time to admire the water flowing through the caverns and the massive pillars helping to keep it all stable. The fact that the colors on the pillars hadn’t faded after all this time was fascinating to Porker, and he was beginning to think back on the papers Knuckles had gotten from that pirate fellow—

Sonic abruptly dragged his hands down his face and groaned. “Now you’ve gone and done it! Why’d you have to bring up Super in the first place, now I can’t stop thinking about him!”

“Technically, you brought him up.” Porker corrected him, before smiling sheepishly when Sonic shot him a glower (without any heat behind it, of course).

“Listen, it’s just—something about falling into the Emerald chamber made him way worse than usual. I don’t know all of it, but lemme tell ya…” He trailed off, staring into the middle distance.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Porker said softly, wishing he could give his friend a hand on his shoulder or a hug, but that wouldn’t help someone like Sonic. Instead, he jammed his hands in his pockets, kept walking, and waited.

“Ugh…waking up in the wreckage of our plane with the others nowhere in sight…fire everywhere…feeling myself laughing without knowing why…it’s good he’s gone, ‘cause I’m never about to see something like that again.” Sonic spat, forcing the tremor from his voice.

Porker felt his stomach turn. “Nobody told me about that! I can’t imagine how that must have felt, being amongst all that devastation without knowing what had happened!”

“They didn’t even tell me they were alive for days.” Sonic muttered, his shoulders hunched. “Super was still an issue, I know why they didn’t, but they left me thinkin’ I’d—! For days!” Suddenly, he kicked a rock with such speed and violence it shattered on impact.

Sonic clenched his fists, stopping in his tracks in an attempt to catch his breath. Porker shifted a little closer to him, worrying the fabric of his gloves with his fingers. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m guessing you haven’t mentioned this to any of them?”

“Why would I?” Sonic scoffed. “It worked, didn’t it? They fixed the problem.”

Porker opened his mouth—then hesitated—then sighed gently. “Well. I can see why they might have done that, but I don’t necessarily think it was the perfect solution. And if you ever want to talk about it more…I’m here. As your friend.”

“…you meant what you said earlier, right?”

“Hmm?” Porker blinked. “I said a lot of things earlier, I’m afraid you’ll have to remind me.”

“About…not blamin’ me for the stuff he does.” Sonic muttered, clearly embarrassed.

“Of course I did!” he insisted. “And I’ll say it as many times as you need! I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you. I don’t—” 

“Alright, alright, I get it!” Sonic snickered, shoving Porker lightly. “Save your breath for all these stairs, we gotta climb them to get back up to that knucklehead.”

“Oh, good heavens.” Porker sighed, eyeing up the spiral staircase warily.

Sonic rolled his eyes, his trademark smirk softening just a fraction. “Forget it, Porker, just grab on tight.”

Seconds later, they were back in the main room of the Hidden Palace.

The engineer pulled his wrist from Sonic’s grip, stumbling over to the nearest control panel and slumping into a seat. “I will never be used to that,” he wheezed, chuckling lightly.

“Sonic, you’d better not have broken my best engineer!” Knuckles barked, stomping over to the two of them.

“Isn’t he also your only engineer?” Sonic shot back.

“All the more reason not to drag him along when you decide to have a run around!” the echidna insisted.

“Knuckles?” Porker called, interrupting the two’s bickering. He had removed one of his shoes—but not his sock, obviously—and was bandaging up his sore ankle. Both of the others seemed concerned, but when he smiled reassuringly, they both trusted him enough to back off. “Oh yeah, just turned my ankle, nothing major. Anyhow, do you know where the replacement air conduits are? We found the break, but my temporary fix wasn’t much of a fix at all.”

“Drawer 14B.” he replied, already heading off in that direction. “I’ll get it for you if you keep this prickly tank of hot air out of my face some more. Take him to Mushroom Hill or something, have him play with the toddlers a bit to burn off that energy.”

Sonic huffed, tapping his foot rapidly. “Hot air?! You come back here and say that to my face! C’mon, Porker, let’s leave the guardian to his sulking.”

The engineer laughed under his breath as he joined his friend once again. “You two could have a whole comedy show with that kind of banter.” he said warmly.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Sonic rolled his eyes. “Now who needs help packing up?”

Porker did indeed proceed to show Sonic all around the Mushroom Hill Zone, and the two helped out where their skills were needed as the citizens of Emerald Hill prepared to return to their long-evacuated home. (As a matter of fact, Sonic sped up the process by at least half a day, which went greatly appreciated amongst everyone present.)

Once they had finished with that, Sonic admitted that he should probably head back soon, to make sure that the rebuilding process was still going well and that his other friends didn’t need him for anything urgent. Porker walked him back to the plane, the two chatting about memories new and old along the way. And just before Sonic hopped into the cockpit, he placed a hand on Porker’s shoulder—the only differences from last time being that Sonic was the one to leave via plane instead…and that Porker put his hand over Sonic’s for just the briefest of moments.

As the Hero of Mobius took off, he looked back for a second to see his old friend waving him off with a smile on his face, and he couldn’t help but feel pleased to know that he was welcome back whenever he felt like it. To his surprise, however, there was one other thing he noticed—or rather, the absence of something.

This time, when he had settled into his plane and prepared for takeoff, the memories of Super hadn’t been there. Even now that he noticed it, even though he could still remember the fire, now, there was also…

“I don’t blame you.”

And wasn’t that just something else?

[spinarakiweek]

Prompts 4 Spinaraki Week 4

(Art credit and our tremendous thanks go to poodlewool!)

Hello, all! We're here at last with prompts and dates for the fourth Spinaraki Week! It will be held in the very last week of August, from Sunday the 25th to Saturday the 31st!

As with last time, you can find a text version of the prompts and the full rules beneath the cut below, but first, a few general upkeep notes!

Re: event week tags: Following previous patterns, the tags for the week will be #spinarakiweek, #spinarakiweek2024, #spinarakiweek4, and #spinarakiweeknsfw.

Re: spoiler tags: Going by the results of the poll we ran about spoilers we ran, the vast majority of respondents are up on current events/don't care about spoilers. However, there are a small number of people who are avoiding spoilers. In recognition of that breakdown, and the fact that the manga will be over by the time the event is held, we will not be asking participants to spoiler tag their work on their own blogs, but will make our best efforts to tag for manga spoilers (#bnha manga spoilers) as we reblog to the main blog.

We have no current plans to tag for anime spoilers, as none of the mods follow the anime particularly closely, but please do contact us if you would like us to tag for spoilers for the anime episodes that will be airing immediately around the event (barring any breaks in the airing schedule, these should be Episodes 15 and 16 of the current season, Episodes 153 and 154 overall).

Re: AU fills: We got a number of requests on the survey for AU-type prompts: mermaids, supernatural creatures, heroes, pro-gamers, and so on. While we've dabbled with fanfic tropes as prompts in past years, this year we wanted to keep things relatively open. Just as a reminder, though, we heartily welcome AU content, so anyone is welcome to do AUs at any time and for any prompt they can make fit for it! You could do Mermaid AU fills for every day of the week and we'll happily reblog it, so long as they fit some aspect of one of the prompts of the day. Please, go absolutely nuts!

Re: our tumblr subpages: Firstly, our rules are the same as always, and can be found in the Rules section at the top of the page if that's visible to you, or beneath the cut below if not. The (new!) Graphics section, as the name suggests, contains every previous graphic we've used in prior weeks; these or the Tagged Works section can be used to scope out prompts from past weeks if anyone would like some inspiration or ideas for our traditional Free Day or to incorporate with other prompts this week! If the subpages don't work for you, you can also go back through the mod post tag (as at the bottom of this post!) to find previous housekeeping posts, which should get you back to previous prompt lists and the likes relatively quickly.

That's it! Rules and text prompts below the jump! We can't wait to do this thing with you all!

Text Prompts

Sunday 25th: Dedication  ~  History  ~  Game Over

Monday 26th: Monster  ~  Enough  ~  Load

Tuesday 27th: Horror  ~  Horizon  ~  Inventory

Wednesday 28th: Cracks  ~  Dream  ~  Home

Thursday 29th: Last Words  ~  Climb  ~  Cut Scene

Friday 30th: Reputation  ~  Crossover  ~  Save

Saturday 31st: Write  ~  Inheritance  ~  Continue?  +  FREE DAY

Rules & Policies

1)  We will accept and reblog any fan-made work—fanfiction, fanart, meta, playlists, etc.—so long as it focuses primarily on Shigaraki and Spinner’s relationship and fits an appropriate daily prompt.  The work must be newly published for the week, though if you wish to also use it as a fill for some other concurrent event, you’re welcome to do so.           You can work with any of the daily prompts you like, singly or in combination.  We try to keep them fairly broad, so feel free to get as creative as you like!  We welcome any fill that satisfies some aspect of the chosen prompt(s). 

2)  We’re celebrating the relationship between Shigaraki and Spinner as it’s been, as it may be, and even as it could have been.  Shippy-fic or gen-fic, canon-compliant or AU, romantic or platonic or any complicated place in between; we’re good with all of it.  Polyshipping/OT3s are allowed, but the focus must remain on Shigaraki and Spinner.

3)  Regarding content, we’re not placing hard limits on what we’re accepting.  Shigaraki and Spinner are villains in a canon that goes to some shockingly dark places, so we consider exploration of that darkness fair game for fanwork.  Likewise, given that this is a week focused on a relationship, we welcome NSFW content.  We do, however, ask that all content be responsibly and appropriately tagged for any content you have reason to expect could be upsetting to others. 

4)  We’ll be checking the tags for spinarakiweek2024, spinarakiweek4, spinarakiweek, and spinarakiweeknsfw.  As stated above, please tag also for any work that requires content warnings.  We’re only operating on tumblr, so if your work is hosted elsewhere, feel free to post a link to it and use one of our tags, though if you do so, you may also wish to message us about it, given tumblr’s notorious grouchiness about off-platform links.           Feel free to message us if it seems like we’ve missed a fill of yours!  Late entries are allowed and enthusiastically welcome.  

5)  No hating on other ships or characters—we’re here to celebrate and enjoy Spinaraki, so if there’s a character you can’t include without bashing them disproportionately to the canon, just don’t include them.  Likewise, please be respectful of other participants and their work, whether or not it’s to your particular taste.

6)  We reserve the right to exercise moderator discretion in the case of borderline rule violations or unforeseen issues.

[daddecember]

Welcome to DadDecember 2024!

Everyone who participated last year, welcome back! To everyone joining this year, welcome in! We cannot wait to see what you create.

Please make sure to read this post carefully, as many questions have been answered here already. We have also answered all the questions that were submitted through our anon voting form already. If you don’t find what you are looking for there, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here. The mod team will get back to you as soon as possible.

If you wish to give a comment to the mod team without a response, feel free to use our questions, comments, and concerns google form: https://forms.gle/fRcZq2TsV2pgoNs97

This year’s AO3 Collection →  https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DadDecember2024

Event Info & Rules

DadDecember is an annual prompt month featuring platonic father and child relationships. We have a collection of prompts for each day meant to inspire works to be created.

*Due to the nature of this event being, do not submit father/child incestual content. That is not the point of this event. This event is strictly platonic. Thank you for understanding.

There are 62 prompts this year with 10 alternative prompts. Each day has two prompts, one situational/trope prompt and one dialogue prompt. You do not need to use both. While we do encourage you to mix and match prompts with different days to fit your specific WIP, we do ask that you tag the prompt you used, not just the day.

This is a prompt month meant to inspire works, so please don’t take any of the prompts too seriously! If you want to get silly with it or really angsty, that’s up to you! How much of the prompt you use and how you use it is all up to you! If you think it fits the prompt, then it does. There is no gatekeeping in DadDecember.

It’s up to the creator how much they want to produce or what media form they want to create in! Anything and everything counts (and if you’re really unsure, you can always ask!). The idea of the event is to create, no matter in the manner you do so. 

As far as “how much do I need to do in order for it to count?” – Well, that’s up to you! All participants, regardless of how many works they put out, will be recognized for their efforts!

A google form will be sent out after December ends in which you will be able to say how many works you completed. Works do not need to be published in any way shape or form to count. Participants will be ranked by completion in a tumblr post after the form closes and a custom role will be available for completionists in our discord server.

Should you wish to upload some of your DadDec content to Tumblr, use these tags:

Required tags:

#daddecember 

#daddecember2024

#sfw or #nsfw

Optional Tags (but appreciated if used)

#DadDec No.1, #DadDec No.2, #DadDec No.3, ect.

#fandom or #OC, … (ironman, originalcontent, oc …)

#teeth, #gore tw, #etc …..(trigger warnings and content warnings. Add “tw” or “cw” AFTER the trigger/content warning )

For the sfw/nsfw tag, please use your best judgment. A Mature or Explicit rating (for anything except gore) should be marked as nsfw.

Reblogging Policies:

Due to the nature of the blog and for the safety of all fellow participants, nsfw posts will not be reblogged. - These works are still very much welcome in the AO3 collection.

You MUST tag @daddecember if you wish for your work to be reblogged

If you notice your work has not been reblogged (+ you tagged us) and it has been 2+ days, please send us an ask! It is likely that tumblr ate the notification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Do I have to do all 31 days?

Participate as much as you would like! Whether you can get out one piece between now and the end of December or 45, we are here to encourage you all along the way!

Q. Can I post early/late?

Yes, you can post whenever you want. Due to time constraints, we may not reblog posts outside of December (pinging @Mod Addri via discord will always get you reblogged, though, so you can always try that ;) ).

Q. Can I combine DadDecember with other creation challenges?

Yes, as long as the other challenges allow it as well. Please reference their rules.

Q. Can I use prompts to write a new chapter for an existing fic?

Yes.

Q. Can I use a prompt multiple times?

Yes, but it only will count once for your total completion number (unless combined with a different unused prompt).

Q. Do I have to finish a fic I started/can I post WIP’s?

Yes, you can post WIPs. Snippets or other forms of WIPs are completely fine and will still count for completion! As long as you started it, feel free to count it!

Q. Is collaborating allowed?

Absolutely, we even encourage it! Collaborations can be an amazing way to get full completion status (especially if you’re competitive) without as much work! It would count towards being a completionist for both/all of you.

Q. Can I combine prompts? Is there a limit on how many?

No limit and combine as many as you’d like.

Q. Can I start working on the prompts before December?

Absolutely! That’s why we post the prompts a little over a month in advance. We recognise how difficult it can be creating for 31 days in “real time” so feel free to start creating early!

Q. Do I have to use your required tags?

If you want your work reblogged, yes.

Q. Does combining prompts count towards completion?

Yes.

Note: This is a creation challenge, please don’t repost your old work under our tags (unless it’s been changed or edited for the event).

Best of luck,

Mod Addri

The full written-out list of prompts is below the cut.

2024 Prompts List:

1. Lost in the woods | "Cover your eyes"

2. Sick day | "I didn't know where else to go"

3. Accidents happen | "Are we there yet?"

4. Father's day | "Wait, wait, he's your father?"

5. Stars | "You're just like I remember"

6. First steps | "I have never hated you"

7. Learning to drive | "I'm sorry"

8. Alternate Universe - Age reversal / Role-swap | "Can you tell me a story?"

9. Tears | "Follow my lead"

10. Pillow fight | "Are you okay?"

11. Forever | "Can we do this every year?"

12. First pet | "Don't you dare..."

13. Demon Lord and Hero | "You're not my real dad"

14. Platonic Soulmates | "Can I have a hug?"

15. Similarities | "Please don't go"

16. Appearances | "Leave me alone"

17. Bring your kid to work day | "Can we make cookies?"

18. Promises | "I'll make it up to you, I promise"

19. Hypothermia | "What's with the long face?"

20. Time travel | "It's too late"

21. Finding a way home | "Be home by midnight"

22. Found family | "What did I say about..."

23. Patching each other up | "Santa isn't real"

24. Not quite asleep | "You came back?"

25. Holidays | "I'm proud of you"

26. Homework | "This is your birthright."

27. Bring your parent to school day | "Can you help me with this?"

28. Loss | "Happy birthday!"

29. Body Swap | "You remembered?"

30. Wings / Grooming | "Get down here this instant"

31. A new year | "Thank you."

Alternative Prompts:

1. A kind lie / A harsh truth

2. Giving gifts

3. Home alone 

4. Snow day

5. Pillow fort

6. "Of all things"

7. Hidden

8. Another world - Universe Swap

9. Werewolves/Vampires

10. Family dinner

[ilyfynn]

and it's here. the boxing au, written for mcytblr aufest.

Feinberg does first place, and first place alone.

Welcome to the ring. We hope you enjoy the show!

kier @im-bored-so-i-draw's gorgeous, brilliant art, which is the basis of this work:

@mcytblraufest

thank yous and bonus fic beneath the cut (very long)

many many MANY MANY MANYYYYYYY thanks to:

the mod team for organizing and running the event. i'm unbelievably grateful for the time and effort it must have taken to keep all of this up and running, so thank you for fuelling this creation of ours <3

@theembergazer for perpetually being there for me and listening to yap on about the fic. you are goated and lovely, and i hope you don't hate me too much for it.

@bioluminescentfrog also for listening to me yap. i appreciate it goat <3

@goober890 again, ALSO for listening to me yap. i know i put you through intense torture talking about it. but it's here now. i appreciate you so much - you're one of the people who can boast of having read my works before i shifted focus. thank you thank you thank you <3333333333 the happiest of birthdays to you :3 (everybody wish him happy birthday right NEOW)

all of mcsrblr for having to put up with me going on about the fic. it must have been exasperating. sorry about hiraeth's multiple month hiatus. i love you mcsr - don't you ever stop being awesome ppflower

and last but most of all,

kier @im-bored-so-i-draw.

it has been the pleasure of a lifetime writing this au. i can still remember going fucking insane over whether i would get your frankly absolutely stunning gorgeous art. and then i did and it was absolutely unreal. when i walked into this i didn't expect to produce what i ended up producing. i never would've dreamed of writing a 22k+ fic in 2 months.

and kier, you have GOT to know this, half of the writing was done by you. if not in reality, then in spirit - all those times i thought i was going insane by staring at the doc, you pulled me out of it. i am absolutely, eternally grateful for your consistent presence throughout this entire journey. because that's what it was, wasn't it? a journey, starting with new beginnings and ending with - if i allow myself not to be modest for a moment - a masterpiece. this is my longest work to date. and i have you to thank for that. from complaining endlessly in the google doc to watching httyd together, you have been there the whole time, and i cannot stress enough how absolutely wonderful all this has been.

so thank you. thank you! thank you for everything. thank you for starting this gorgeous au with your art, and thank you for making it come alive in the same way. your art is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, impeccably beautiful. i am in love with it.

thank you for choosing to participate in the aufest at all, and thank you for supporting me as i mentally collapsed struggled to write halfway through. thank you for your patience, and kindness, and all those words and emotes and gifs - they mean so much, and i will forever be grateful.

i could not have done this without you, kier. we've made it, see? we've made it! look how far we have come. only the Universe can see how thankful i am. i love you because you are love. you are one of the kindest, most brilliant people i have ever interacted with. remember that.

i hope the future holds more for the both of us. i absolutely hope that we will immediately recollab on - gets shot and dies

but i couldn't let this go without gifting you something you haven't seen yet. so. just for you, have silverrreign's side of the story.

enjoy :3 (for those who are not kier please read the main fic first there are spoilers 😭)

[spinthetags]

(Once again, thank you to @pononoin for the art and @alister312 for the banner!)

We’re thrilled to announce that the interest check was a success, and we’re ready to move onto signups! The signup form will be found at the end of this post, and please make sure to read the rules carefully before filling it out!

So, what is a Secret Santa event?

In a Secret Santa event, each person who participates is both a “Santa” and a “giftee”. Each person will begin their participation by creating a small wishlist of concepts that they would like to see in their gift (more on this later!). The mod (that’s spinthetags) will look over the wishlists and assign each person both a giftee and a Santa. The person participating will be aware of their giftee’s identity — as they’ll receive their wishlist, and be instructed to create a gift somewhat adhering to those wishes — but they won’t be aware of their Santa! Their Santa is the person who will be giving a gift to the original user based on their wishlist.

Here’s an example: Person A asks for a gift relating to Tweek celebrating Christmas with Craig. Person B is assigned to be Person A’s Santa, though Person A doesn’t know it! Person B will then create a gift related to Person A’s ask. In the meantime, Person B is also a Santa — they’ve received Person C’s wishlist, and are creating a gift to their specifications. At the end of the event, everyone will get their gift! Person B will give their Tweek-centric piece to Person A, and Person A will give Person C’s gift to Person C! Consider it kind of like a circle, where everyone will both give and receive a gift.

It’s not as complicated as it may seem! During the course of the event, all each person needs to worry about is creating a work for their giftee. Then, at the end of the event, everyone will exchange their gifts! We encourage posting the work on Tumblr (though other social media sites are definitely allowed!) and tagging your giftee, revealing that you’re their Santa in the process. This will all be reiterated as we get closer to the gift posting date!

Below is our estimated timeline for the event:

October 25th - November 3rd: Signups are open!

November 4th - November 5th - Participants are sent their giftee’s wishlist!

November 6th - January 5th - Participants work on their gifts!

December 20th - January 5th - Gifts are posted!

As you can see, there’s an overlap between the creation of gifts and the posting of gifts; this is because the holidays can be busy for everyone, and we want to give you as much time as possible! You don’t need to post your gift immediately on December 20th — you can instead post it any time between December 20th and January 5th. If you need more time to work, take it! It doesn’t need to be finished by December 20th, as long as it gets shared before January 5th.

So, that’s the basics of the Secret Santa event! But we also have some more rules. Here they are below:

1. All works created for this event must be SFW! Profanity and light suggestiveness (granted the characters are of age) are allowed in line with the show, but no explicit NSFW content may be involved.

2. We ask that works you create are full pieces, or close to such; make sure to put the effort your giftees deserve into your works! We’re not explicitly disallowing sketches or drabbles, but make sure to put the amount of effort into your works that you would like to receive from your Santa!

3. The mods are going to work hard to make sure everyone gets assigned a giftee that they’re comfortable working with! On that note, there will be no switching; once you get assigned your giftee, short of extenuating circumstances, you won’t be given a different one.

4. We understand that things may come up! If you decide you no longer wish to participate in the event, you must let us know by Thanksgiving (November 23rd) so we can find a new Santa for your giftee.

5. Make sure to come into this with an open mind! Not everyone has the same skill level, and we ask you to consider the effort your Santa put in rather than their skill or experience in the medium. Please show your Santa appreciation!

6. The type of media you create can be anything; we expect to see a lot of fanart and fanfiction, but what you can create isn’t limited to that! If you have any doubts about whether your media is allowed, please send us an ask and we’ll get back to you!

On the same note as the rules, here are some guidelines for your wishlists!

- You can be as vague or specific as you would like! It’s encouraged to leave your Santa some wiggle room to exercise their creativity, but there’s no shame in adding specific preferences to your wishlist!

- It’s not required, but we encourage you to include some Holiday-themed requests. Get into the spirit of the season!

- You can put as many requests on your wishlist as you’d like! It’s a good idea to include at least two or three, to give your Santa some options, but there’s no upper limit. Just remember that the more requests you include, the less likely it’ll be that ALL of them will get included.

- Your wishlist can include anything from ships to scenarios to headcanons; anything that you would like to see represented in a work you’re receiving.

- Please be respectful of what’s on a wishlist! Remember that you’re creating the work for your giftee, not for you; even if you disagree with some of the headcanons the user would like, we ask you to still do your reasonable best on including them. If there is anything that you are deeply uncomfortable with creating, there will be a spot on the signup form to enter it, and we’ll make sure you aren’t paired with a user who would like that content.

Here is the link to sign up!

Please note that communications related to this event will be done by email; we encourage you to create a new email for the event if you’re uncomfortable sharing your personal one! Please make sure to check your email at least weekly! Communications will be sent from spinthetags@gmail.com.

Thank you to everyone who’s interested in participating! We can’t wait to see what you create!

[ailesswhumptober]

And thus Whumptober comes to an end!

We can now solidly say that even in other timezones, Whumptober has come to an end!!!

We hope that everybody has enjoyed their time - whether you've managed to fill all 31 prompts or only found the time to tackle 1, you all deserve a big applause for creativity and effort. We've seen some amazing works this month again :D

We'll take a couple days for the mods to reblog any stragglers we catch in the tags. During this time, the AO3 collection will also remain open for whoever wants to add to it still.

In about a week, we'll post our Google Form where ya'll can apply for the badges you've earned, which will be hand delivered by the mods with a big hooray. We cannot thank you all enough for joining this little event <3

[dragonfire42]

It's been a fun year for writing Good Omens fanfic and connecting with the lovely GO fandom!

I got hooked in January writing "The Neverending Archive" (G+, 19k, GO/Neverending Story crossover)

I made this video about learning Discord.

I followed that up with another T+ 19k story "The Feelings Catch Up"

And when I turned 42 this year I made a GO/Hitchhiker's Guide crossover "Fowl Play" (T+, 20k)

And currently in the middle of posting "Making the Effort" (M+, 12k+) and made some word art poetry.

I'm proud that I've been able to make a new chapter post every week since March in my AO3 account with all these stories!

(And for fun I made this daily Tumblr blog, for daily demon check-ins after The Kiss: @meanwhile-at-crowleys-flat )

(And I cosplayed Fell the Marvellous)

(And Duck Crowley)

But in the middle of these, I joined nine GO themed discords and four bangs where I'm working on seven stories and have been matched with seven artists for works that will premiere this fall (you know how God likes sevens!)

If you aren't familiar with bangs, it's a fanfiction event where a writer is paired with an artist to work on a project together. (Reverse bangs start with the art as inspiration, the others start with the story)

And I wanted to give a quick sneak peek of what I'm currently working on, in roughly the order of release starting in the beginning of September:

"Rainbow Connection" - GO Puppeteer slow burn AU - Theatre themed reverse bang

"Jiggery Pokery" - GO POV Prof Hoffman teaching magic to Aziraphale - Theatre themed reverse bang

"Here's Looking at You, Angel" - GO/Casablanca themed crossover, canon compliant post S2 - DIWS silver screen bang (preview poster reveal 8/5 and 8/7!)

"Crowley and the Seven Nac Mac Feegles" - GO/Snow White themed with Discworld and Sandman crossover characters - Fairytale themed bang

"A Toast to the End of the World" GO/Alternate Flood Myths - Fairytale themed bang

"Elsbeth and the Beanstalk" - GO AU from minisode "The Resurrectionist" - Fairytale themed reverse bang

"The Angel's Gambit" - GO/Seventh Seal crossover - Halloween themed bang

Subscribe on AO3 to get notified when these come out! https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfire42/works

I'm VERY excited to share these stories with you as soon as they are ready, many that I have been working diligently on for over 3-6 months! I've written well over 100k in words so far this year.

And also want to take a moment to thank everyone who has stopped by to read these!

And all the amazing artists contributing work to these stories! Through these discord events I've had a chance to connect with so many talented artists around the world!

And all the mods facilitating such fun events year round and making this possible!!

I'll post more on these as we go but was excited to share some of what's on the horizon too 🤍🖤

And if you want to learn about these bangs or other upcoming events be sure to check out the GO Calendar blog!

[vashwood-week]

Vashwood Week 2024 will be running from May 26th-June 1st!

Day 1 / May 26th: Childhood / Partners In Crime / Werewolf AU Day 2 / May 27th: Protection / Trust / Bodyguard AU Day 3 / May 28th: Saviour / Martyr / Reincarnation AU Day 4 / May 29th: Blood / Flowers / Role Swap AU Day 5 / May 30th: Traitor / Mercy / Angel AU Day 6 / May 31st: Forgiveness / Guilt / Timeloop AU Day 7 / June 1st: T4T / Free Space

(Huge thanks to @nebulaleaf for the phenomenal graphic!)

Thank you to everyone who filled out the interest check! With your input, we have decided to run from May 26th through June 1st, incorporating some of the many wonderful prompt suggestions received via the form.

When the time comes, please tag all entries with [ # Vashwood Week ] and [ # Vashwood Week 2024 ] in order to be promoted. In addition to this, please @ MENTION THIS BLOG in all entries so that I can see and boost your work.

I will be putting a copy of our guidelines below the cut, but you can find those and more written up on our carrd so please check that out if you need a refresher.

If you're not going to stick around for those, thank you for your time! I will be posting about the week in the days leading up to it, so stay tuned for that and happy Vashwooding!

⟡ For the mod's own personal comfort, any works featuring topics of non-consent, incest, and pedophilia will not be promoted.

⟡ NSFW content will be allowed so long as it is tagged appropriately. Pieces without adequate tagging will not be promoted.

⟡ Additionally, NSFW entries should have SFW thumbnails or blurring in order to get promoted by the account.

⟡ At the risk of stating the obvious, NSFW entries created by anyone under the age of 18 will NOT be accepted and will NOT be promoted. Any minor who tries to submit NSFW will be blocked, for their own safety more than anything.

⟡ The focus of this event will be the celebration of Vash and Wolfwood's romantic relationship; as such, entries featuring them in romantic relationships with other members of the cast will not be promoted. Past relationship stuff is fine, but please keep the focus on Vashwood.

⟡ In accordance with the above bullet, the mod also will not be promoting content focusing on the platonic relationship between Vash and Wolfwood. However, queer-platonic content will be allowed and promoted.

⟡ All forms of contribution will be accepted, be that visual art, writing, edits, playlists, cosplay, etc. However, all work submitted MUST be your own. There will be a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism and if it is found that you are passing off anyone's work as your own, you will be blocked by all affiliated accounts and disqualified from participating.

⟡ Works created with the use of AI will not be promoted.

⟡ Late entries will be accepted indefinitely, even after the week has ended, so feel free to use the prompts to their fullest extent even if you aren't able to participate during the week itself!

⟡ This event is meant to be fun! Please do not bully, harass, or disparage any of the other participants. If it is discovered that you are doing so, you will be blocked and disqualified from participating.

⟡ All kinds of queer and trans headcanons will be accepted for this event. All forms of bigotry are absolutely not allowed and if it is discovered that a participant is harassing others on the basis of LGBTQ+ headcanons... well, you know what goes here.

Regarding the last bullet, please keep in mind that the "T4T" prompt does not specify any specific kind of transness, meaning that works featuring transfem, intersex, nonbinary, etc headcanons may be featured or even prevalent in entries. I ask that we make a specific effort to prevent the normalisation of transmisogyny in fandoms and be supportive of all different headcanons.

Thank you again for the support and we look forward to seeing what you create!

[loveleffie]

This was written as part of Nanami For Palestine's raffle to raise funds for different charities and GFMs to support Palestine.

I want to thank the mods for putting this together, all the other contributors for their awesome artwork and stories, and to everyone who donated to the cause! We're certain dear Nanami would be proud of everyone for your efforts!

Also, congrats to _clockstrings for winning this piece in the raffle! Thank you for your kind words, as well 💛

-------------

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Relationship: Nanami Kento & Itadori Yuuji

AU: no powers AU

Summary:

Nanami Kento goes through a traumatic event while working as a stockbroker and, with guidance from his childhood friend, Jin Itadori, he decides on a career change to become a high school mentor.

[dsmprarepairbb]

DSMP Rare Pair Big Bang Info!

Hello everyone! I have officially created the timeline for this event, as well as decided some basic rules! More details will be coming over the next month, but these are the most important events!

General guidelines:

Authors will be expected to write a minimum of 5,000 words. Please keep the fic you're writing a secret, as sign ups will be anonymous!!

Artists will be expected to create at minimum one work for each fic they are teamed with.

For this current event, all DSMP ships are allowed except Dreamnotfound and ships that contain at least one minor and one adult. In the future we will narrow this down. A post giving more explanation will come later. (For those wondering why DNF is excluded, please see this post)

NSFW is allowed, however it must be properly tagged and kept out of SFW spaces.

Non-con and dub-con are NOT ALLOWED. Dark themes may be present, but they must be properly tagged.

QPRs are allowed but PLATONIC IS NOT

Event timeline: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AS THIS HAS CHANGED!!!!!

January 1 - Discord Opens. Authors begin writing

The discord will be opened for all potential participants! Also, this is when writers would ideally begin writing!

February 1 - Author Signups Open

A link to a signup sheet will be posted in the discord announcements channel. Authors should be at least halfway through writing their work. (Minimum word count is 5,000, but if you expect your work to be something like 7,000 you need to have written at least 3,500 to make sure you make it on time) WORKS SHOULD REMAIN ANONYMOUS!

February 7 - Author Signups Close

Unless signing up as a pinch author, no one will be accepted after 11:00pm CST

February 11 - Artist Signups Open

Artists will have a chance to look at a list of anonymous stories and will select three that they most want.

February 17 - Artist Signups Close

Unless signing up as a pinch artist, no one will be accepted after 11:00pm CST

February 20 - Teams Announced

A mod will reach out through DMs and let you know who your teammate is. Please make an effort to reach out as soon as you can and begin working together!

February 26 - The Vow of Silence Lifts!

Discussions of works can now be discussed outside of just your team!

March 22 - Posting Week Begins

Teams will have until the 30th to post all parts of their fics and art. All works with more than 5 chapters MUST be fully posted by April 6th

Join the Discord Here!

This is the first project like this I have ever done, so I'm sure I've missed some stuff. More clarification will come during the month of December, but always feel free to send an ask!

Thank you!!

[ffviidirtyconfessions]

genuine question!! why do you care about sefikura so much when they are not real people? i get not liking a ship for whatever reason but your strong feelings on the ship seem unwarranted when you're literally running a dirty confessions blog. liking sefikura =/= condoning abuse nor invalidating real peoples trauma. cloud is not real. neither is sephiroth. thats why you can sexualise them silly style on a tumblr blog! i do not mean this maliciously, i am genuinely wondering

To start, above all of the other concerns, I don't like nor allow anything related to sefikura on this blog because it conflicts with the pedophilia rule. In game canon, Cloud and Sephiroth first met when Cloud was a young teenager, and Sephiroth was very much an adult.

That alone is enough to make it not the kind of content I want to promote to an audience. Though I do run a dirty confessions blog, I aim to make it as safe as a space as possible for everyone. Dirty, sexy, or NSFW spaces do not automatically have to be an anything goes, "you shouldn't have a problem with anything if you go here" place. In that light, I tag kinks that may be upsetting just as I don't allow underage, abusive, and other dynamics of relationships that can not only be triggering, but a bad, dangerous example for teens and other young people.

I am fully aware that fiction is not a direct equivalent to reality. However, I think it is very much true that it has a real effect on reality, especially in how individuals see themselves in it and relate to it. I've had a conversation on this same topic before with a veteran of the FF7 fandom who witnessed a Vincent/Yuffie roleplay couple online turn out to be a real pedophilic situation. Obviously, this is far from the case for every instance, but it happens. Just as I cannot allow confessions about underage characters to protect potential teenagers looking at this blog, I also cannot allow the romanticization of a relationship that could hurt or remind traumatized people of their own pain.

I do not believe that every person who ships sefikura "condones abuse" or "invalidates trauma". Likely, most don't even think about that aspect and simply like seeing the characters do whatever they want to together. I understand that. But speaking from the perspective of a traumatized person who has related deeply to Cloud Strife's story, I do believe that there is something to the dynamic that just isn't being understood if it's being ignored to play dolls. This is not to say that Cloud and Sephiroth being together is a 1:1 mirror that will remind anyone who's ever been in a bad relationship of their pain. Rather, it's what Sephiroth represents to Cloud, and how the games portray his feelings towards him. In some readings, you might even argue that Sephiroth is a metaphor for trauma: something unbeatable, always in the back of your mind, waiting to seduce you back to the patterns of self destructive behavior that the traumatic event might have created in you. I think that Cloud's struggle with this and his efforts to move past it are a large core of FF7's story, and to me it rings hollow to ignore that because neither character is, as you said, "real".

I don't expect to change anyone's mind, and my stance on this has already been clear on the front page of the blog for over a year now. I am sure that tens of dozens of sefikura fans who otherwise liked the blog have blocked me over this. And that's fine! Nobody has to agree with me, and there clearly will always be another space to go to for those that want to see that stuff. But it matters to me both on a personal level and as the mod of a public blog to talk about this stuff in a different light. Because if fiction can help people in a real way, it can also hurt them in a real way. I think that a level-headed perspective on all these issues can be reached. It's not all or nothing.

Thanks for asking.

[employee052]

A Date With Narry WINNERS

The "Date with Narry" event is now over!

Thank you so so so so much to everyone who participated! I didn't expect that there would be more than a handful of submissions, so seeing all of them as the event ends is amazing to me. I can't thank you all enough for participating if you did, whether by asks, or by liking the posts if they came across your dash.

And thank you to everyone new who found @mrthenarrator's blog thanks to this event!

breaking character as the mod of The Narrator's Blog for a bit: I'm so glad everyone was willing to interact with him as a character! I'm not an expert on RP, and this is the first-ever "event/competition" ive hosted, so this event taught me a lot both in hosting, as well as challenged me in terms of roleplay! Plus, thank you for letting me indulge my inner Narry by having him respond to your submissions. Getting to RP as him for the event was incredibly fun and rewarding, and seeing everyones submissions come in through the week was amazing and I loved getting to see all of them appear in the inbox (as well as seeing some of your reactions to his reactions! I do look thru the notes and rbs and i love seeing all your comments to narry's shenanigans) I hope that, even if you didn't win a drawing today, just know that all your submissions and contributions to the event hold a place in my heart, thank you all so so much for participating and I will be perpetually thanking you into the far future for letting me do a little silly event sdkjfgjhg. I hope I can set up more in the future, and hopefully, they won't be centred around getting narry a date /lh

AND NOW ONTO THE WINNERS:

These winners are in no particular order! And, because I am an indecisive little monster, I ended up with FOUR winners instead of Three.

(All of them were so hard to choose it's why this took so long 😭😭😭😭)

@bucketfan427

---

@crowzzznest (and @superaurora16 too, since your submission was a joint effort/has both of your characters)

---

@give-soup-please

---

@notmefoina

----

For the winners, feel free to send me a DM on this blog of pictures/picrews/whatever you have on hand of your Characters/Sonas for reference, as well as an idea of what might happen on the date you and the Narrator might be! (We can also fit some other characters/sonas into the drawing if you want. it doesn't have to be just one)

Your idea can be as vague or as detailed as you want, and you don't have it all laid out at first if you can't think of anything. We can always bounce ideas around and find one that you like the most for me to draw.

And if you don't want a drawing, that's fine too! Just let me know in DMs so I can know! (and I promise I won't be upset if you don't want one /gen, I'm going back to uni classes next week so I'll be busy trying to get all the drawings done in my free time. which isn't a lot, so I'll just thank you for the millionth time again for participating and let you move on with your day kjsadhf /lh)

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this event! Hope you all have a good night

[everrainrp]

Major Festivals

[Written by Mod Vessel and Mod Nat]

GENERAL FESTIVAL INFORMATION

There are four major and solidified festivals, as of right now, held seasonally throughout the clans. They are hosted by a clan on their territory/in their camp, each one rotating who will host the next festival. Typically this is decided by the leaders of each clan.

Festivals, while a recent development within the clans, have become something that all cats get excited for. They were originally started between Shoreshimmer and Skyreach, in an effort to make the new clan feel welcome when it was first founded. The other three clans ended up eventually joining in as well, whether that be because they also wanted to participate in the festivities or to show off their strength. Now, they're a time of respite and relaxation for the target participants.

The main four festivals are held on these days, and tend to focus on these ranks:

Autumnal Equinox

Festival of Youth

A day just for the apprentices as they start their transitions into adulthood.

Winter Solstice

Festival of Warmth

A celebration of all Hearthkeepers do to take care of the clans!

Vernal Equinox

Festival of Cycles

A time for the kits to be celebrated and loved, and to nurture the hope for their futures.

Summer Solstice

Festival of Stories

An event focused on the elders of the clans, for them to tell stories and to celebrate all the life they've lived and have yet to live.

-

Below, you will find more information regarding each of the mentioned festivals, how they're celebrated and activities that may accompany them!

AUTUMNAL EQUINOX (FESTIVAL OF YOUTH)

About

-

The Autumnal Equinox Festival, also called the Festival of Youth interchangeably, is a celebration of harvest before the territories begin to rest before winter. It is also a celebration for the apprentices of the clans, as they begin their transitional period of life. It's a day just for them to relax, play, and enjoy their fleeting days of youth.

Apprentices are very important to the clans, they care for the elders, they help run errands, and they are also exploring their options for their future. It's important to nurture this curiosity in apprentices, to thank them for the hard work they're doing to learn the clan's values and caring for the clan in the ways they can. Their futures will shape the clans as they know it, giving them their own special festival is a celebration of the clan's shared futures.

There are several different activities that are decided by the host clan's higher-ups. Though these may differ, there are at most five different events chosen for the day:

- Catching the most of a particular common prey species.

- Collecting the prettiest autumn leaf.

- Tracking other cats (usually, a high rank from each clan will hide and the apprentices must find them).

- A sparring tournament.

- Climbing the highest on a chosen tree

- Racing; both running and swimming

- Crafting competitions (apprentices prepare their exhibit beforehand; it is judged at the festival; these are judged by anonymously by the best crafters in the clans).

- Finding a rare (but available in the area) herb.

- Stone throwing.

- A relay race (three to four apprentices of the same clan chosen).

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WINTER SOLSTICE (FESTIVAL OF WARMTH)

About

Winter Solstice, otherwise known as the Festival of Warmth, is for the Hearthkeepers. This festival brings the Clans together to keep warm, and it is not unusual at all to see cats from all different Clans huddled together. The Hearthkeeper's duties to the clans are celebrated on this day. They keep the clan warm, have helped to raise new generations of cats, the most vulnerable of the ones that reside in the clans.

Hearthkeepers are the fire of the clan, yet they simultaneously are the ones who tend it, who nurture it and help it to grow. Their blaze keeps the clan warm and safe, allows for those who live alongside their warmth to grow and be nurtured into something magnificent.

The activities on this day, shared in each other's warmth are as follows:

- The Hearthkeepers are named and honored for any deeds they have done (including kits they’ve helped raise to apprenticeship) and cheered for.

- Hearthkeepers tell stories of myths of old, and cats share tongues around a big fire.

- Cats also can act as plays arranged by the Hearthkeepers of these myths, complete with the occasional ‘costume’ to portray different animals. (There is particular attention focused on myths about the Hearthkeepers and their great deeds.)

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VERNAL EQUINOX (FESTIVAL OF CYCLES)

About

The Festival of Cycles is a time of rebirth for the territories, and is about the time where most cats decide to start families, if they so choose. Also known as the Vernal Equinox Festival, this time is a celebration for the young lives of the clan- the kits. As the frost of winter melts away and brings life back to the plants, and slumbering animals wake up, kits are born into the world to begin the cycle of seasons anew.

Kits of the clans must be protected, their youth and energy are not yet tainted by hardships. Cats who treat kits poorly simply because of their age are oftentimes looked down upon- kits are still young, still learning. To take that away from them simply because they made a mistake or cried over something small reflects poorly on the cats who have experienced a lot more life than the kits have. So, kits get to have a special day to live their youth, and are celebrated because of that.

Kit activities tend to be organized by the Heartkeepers of the clans, as well as kit games being played by all; the activities the Hearthkeepers tend to choose are:

- Kits of all the Clans have their names announced at the beginning, and the parent(s) usually also say the meaning behind the prefix

- Stonethrow.

- Mossball.

- Hopscotch.

- Badger rides.

- Hide and seek.

- A scavenger hunt.

- Introducing the kits of the Clans to each other, to strengthen the bonds of the new generation.

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SUMMER SOLSTICE (FESTIVAL OF STORIES)

About

The Summer Solstice Festival is the warmest and longest day of the year, so it only fits that this be the day for elders to be celebrated. Otherwise called the Festival of Stories, this is a day for the elders of the clan to be honored. They lead the Clans for the day, telling stories from their youth and being cared for by the leaders and younger members of the clan. This festival tends to be a lot more relaxed than the others.

Elders of the clan have lived a lot of life. It's important that it be respected, that their advice be listened to. Though they know the younger cats may still opt to learn things the hard way, elders care for their clanmates and will be there for a listening ear if something goes wrong. They still need to be respected and cared for. Their service to the Clan is over, and they can spend their days relaxing in the shade. Even if they retired early due to their own decisions, they still deserve a space in the clan. The clan wouldn't be the same without them there, and younger cats learn to understand this sentiment as time goes on. So they pull ticks from pelts, help them clean where they can't reach, and bring them prey from the pile; these cats are still worth caring for and should be allowed to live the rest of their lives in comfort. While some young cats may find this festival boring, they are quickly quieted by the reminder that one day they too will get to order the leader(s) around during this time!

It is ultimately, with these words, that this festival was made; "No cat needs to contribute to the clan to be worth something- all they need to do is exist."

Activities for this festival include:

- A reversal of roles- the leader(s) and other High Ranks deferring to the elders for advice, as well as fetching them prey and grooming their pelts.

- The elders of the Clans leading their Clanmates and announcing their arrival, with the leader(s) following behind.

- Elders reminiscing on their lives and giving advice to the young cats.

- The dead of the clans are also remembered during this festival, as a reminder of who couldn't be there.

[daddecember]

DadDecember 2023 Event Announcement

Welcome to DadDecember 2023!

While this is technically our second year running, we’ve changed purposes a little bit from last year. Last year we were very centric on MHA with DFODecember but this year we are instead multifandom to welcome in everyone!

So, with no further ado, everyone who participated last year, welcome back! To everyone joining this year, welcome in! We cannot wait to see what you create.

Please make sure to read this post carefully, as many questions have been answered here already. We have also answered all the questions that were submitted through our anon voting form already. If you don’t find what you are looking for there, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here. The mod team will get back to you as soon as possible.

This year’s AO3 Collection → HERE

Before we get more into the rules, I’d like to give a special thanks to everyone who submitted a prompt through our discord server back in September and all 85 of you who voted on the prompts these past few weeks. Event Info & Rules

DadDecember is an annual prompt month featuring platonic father and child relationships. We have a collection of prompts for each day meant to inspire works to be created.

*Due to the nature of this event being platonic, do not submit father/child incestual content. That is not the point of this event. This event is strictly platonic. Thank you for understanding.

There are 62 prompts this year with 10 alternative prompts. Each day has two prompts, one situational/trope prompt and one dialogue prompt. You do not need to use both. While we do encourage you to mix and match prompts with different days to fit your specific WIP, we do ask that you tag the prompt you used, not just the day.

This is a prompt month meant to inspire works, so please don’t take any of the prompts too seriously! If you want to get silly with it or really angsty, that’s up to you! How much of the prompt you use and how you use it is all up to you! If you think it fits the prompt, then it does. There is no gatekeeping in DadDecember.

It’s up to the creator how much they want to produce or what media form they want to create in! Anything and everything counts (and if you’re really unsure, you can always ask!). The idea of the event is to create, no matter in the manner you do so. 

As far as “how much do I need to do in order for it to count?” – Well, that’s up to you! All participants, regardless of how many works they put out, will be recognized for their efforts! A google form will be sent out after December ends in which you will be able to say how many works you completed. Works do not need to be published in any way shape or form to count. Participants will be ranked by completion in a tumblr post after the form closes and a custom role will be available for completionists in our discord server.

Should you wish to upload some of your DadDec content to Tumblr, use these tags:

Required tags:

#daddecember 

#daddecember2023

#sfw or #nsfw

Optional Tags (but appreciated if used)

#DadDec No.1, #DadDec No.2, #DadDec No.3, ect.

#fandom or #OC, … (ironman, originalcontent, oc …)

#teeth, #gore tw, #etc …..(trigger warnings and content warnings. Add “tw” or “cw” AFTER the trigger/content warning )

For the sfw/nsfw tag, please use your best judgment. A Mature or Explicit rating (for anything except gore) should be marked as nsfw.

Reblogging Policies:

Due to the nature of the blog and for the safety of all fellow participants, nsfw posts will not be reblogged. - These works are still very much welcome in the AO3 collection.

You MUST tag @daddecember if you wish for your work to be reblogged

If you notice your work has not been reblogged (+ you tagged us) and it has been 2+ days, please send us an ask! It is likely that tumblr ate the notification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Do I have to do all 31 days?

Participate as much as you would like! Whether you can get out one piece between now and the end of December or 45, we are here to encourage you all along the way!

Q. Can I post early/late?

Yes, you can post whenever you want. Due to time constraints, we may not reblog posts outside of December (pinging @Mod Addri via discord will always get you reblogged, though, so you can always try that ;) ).

Q. Can I combine DadDecember with other creation challenges?

Yes, as long as the other challenges allow it as well. Please reference their rules.

Q. Can I use prompts to write a new chapter for an existing fic?

Yes.

Q. Can I use a prompt multiple times?

Yes, but it only will count once for your total completion number (unless combined with a different unused prompt).

Q. Do I have to finish a fic I started/can I post WIP’s?

Yes, you can post WIPs. Snippets or other forms of WIPs are completely fine and will still count for completion! As long as you started it, feel free to count it!

Q. Is collaborating allowed?

Absolutely, we even encourage it! Collaborations can be an amazing way to get full completion status (especially if you’re competitive) without as much work! It would count towards being a completionist for both/all of you.

Q. Can I combine prompts? Is there a limit on how many?

No limit and combine as many as you’d like.

Q. Can I start working on the prompts before December?

Absolutely! That’s why we post the prompts a little over a month in advance. We recognise how difficult it can be creating for 31 days in “real time” so feel free to start creating early!

Q. Do I have to use your required tags?

If you want your work reblogged, yes.

Q. Does combining prompts count towards completion?

Yes

Note: This is a creation challenge, please don’t repost your old work under our tags (unless it’s been changed or edited for the event).

Best of luck,

Mod Addri

Also: A special thanks to @eliserael for creating the prompt images!

Written out Prompt List:

Day 1: Reverse Adoption | "I trusted you." Day 2: Snowed In | "I thought I would never see you again" Day 3: Snuggling | "Midnight fast food run?" Day 4: Forehead Kiss | "I'm going to kill you" Day 5: Little Things | "And what about rocks in snowballs?" Day 6: Prison Visit | "There's no gift better than revenge" Day 7: Blizzard | "I won--- WOAH!" Day 8: Holiday Reunion | "Is it supposed to tilt?" Day 9: Abandonment | "You've never wrapped a present before, have you?" Day 10: Emergency Room Trip | "Say goodbye now." Day 11: Patricide | "It's alright to be afraid" Day 12: Hero & Villain | "Oh, I thought presents weren't a thing." Day 13: Vault | "Close your eyes" Day 14: Tucking Into Bed | "Would you hold my hand?" Day 15: Late Nights | "Why didn't you tell me?" Day 16: Decorating Gone Wrong | "You remembered?" Day 17: Secret Santa | "I swear if you fail---" Day 18: Meet the Parents | "Don't do that again" Day 19: Parent-Teacher Conference | "Who are you?" Day 20: Warm Drink | "Is Santa actually real?" Day 21: Home Alone | "Breath in an--- breath out" Day 22: Overseas | "I don't think that's how snow angels work." Day 23: Adoption | "Did you put in sugar or salt?" Day 24: Glitter Overload | "You made bricks, not gingerbread" Day 25: Holidays | "My snow castle is bigger than yours!" Day 26: Disappearance | "Do you have any idea how much paper this thing took?" Day 27: Snow Angels | "Let me sing you a lullaby" Day 28: Burnout | "You hurt me, you know?" Day 29: Injury | "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this?" Day 30: Parentage Reveal | "I love you" Day 31: A New Year | "Would you rather…"

Alternative Prompts:

"I'm not a fan of pain"

Early Mornings

"It wasn't my fault"

In My Time of Need

"This is what I call a surprise!"

A Scooby-Doo Worthy Mystery

"Could I have some flowers?"

A League of Their Own

"Liar, liar, LIAR"

Family Murder

Discord Server + AO3 links for previewing:

[mariequitecontrary]

2024 TF Reverse Mini Bang Memories Part 2

Link to Part 1! I am sharing just a few of my favorite memories of the @tf-bigbang

Let's keep going!

DREAM TEAM 66

The moment I saw @spashahoney's sketch, Team 66 LAUNCHED to the top of my list. I am so lucky to have been matched up with her as my partner!! She is funny, creative, encouraging, and I loved when we fed off each other's energy! I am truly proud of what we created and sincerely hope we continue to work together in the future <3

It was very fun knowing I wanted to partner with her even when I wasn't allowed to say XD

We were a dream team from the start and I'm not afraid to brag about this fact.

We were so chaotic and I had so much fun bouncing around with her talking transformers and about her concept for our collab!

I was also so, so very wrong about how much I planned to write for this fic XD

Either way, we adored what we both had made!

It's also SO TERRIFYING to even think about someone watching you while you write a fic based off of their art XD

It was VERY FUN and I adore my artist <3

Do I completely blame her for my new Optimus/Rodimus obsession? YES.

#BOBACULT

I bought...so much more boba than I usually do because of these people XD Boba Bthursdays and Bubble Tea Fridays birthed an ongoing boba addiction in me that I'm not trying all that hard to fix XD

RP

Getting back into rping! Most importantly starting to rp transformers! I've always been a big fan of collaborative storytelling through roleplay, so am always DELIGHTED to find rp partners to play with <3

I had to pause because of vacations and the bang deadline, but I can't wait to get back into it!

500 Word Writer Awards

We were challenged to write 500 words for a secret prize and suddenly every last block I felt that was preventing me from starting to write DISAPPEARED. I wrote 632 words and suddenly felt like I could do this🙂

I'm very proud of this reward and am keeping it forever.

I'm Easily Baited with Prizes

That was the start of something I kinda knew but FULLY REALIZED over the past few months...that I am so, so, so easily motivated with prizes. It takes minimal effort on the prize giver's part. All it has to be is something you took the time to provide for me and say its mine and suddenly I DRIVEN to complete whatever task is set before me XD

It's pathetic really. But also here are my prizes look at them I worked so hard for them be proud of meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

DO YOU LIKE THEM I WORKED SO HARD FOR THEM! *bright eyes and wags tail*

Friends <3

I made so many friends! Friends to brainstorm with, an ao3 moot, a friend I've entered into a blood pact with, friends I've written together with a sprinting bot, friends to rp with, friends to talk about space robots with and anything under the sun :) I cherish them all so so so much <3

The Great Cicada War

But my friends bullied me :( They witnessed me dealing with probably the most harrowing part of the year...cicada season.

Time of My Life

I hadn't had this much fun in an online community...in a while. The past four months contain precious memories and friendships made that I'll treasure forever.

To the mods, thank you so much for hosting such a fun event! You all put so much work into making this special for us and I couldn't be more grateful to have been a part of this.

To all my new friends, thank you for welcoming me into this space and making me feel like I'm a real part of this fandom! Thank you for being kind and encouraging me when I was down and struggling, and thank you for uplifting and cheering me on when I was proud and succeeding. May inspiration always come easily to you.

Thanks for all the memories! I'll see you soon :)

[littlewitchbee]

the royai big bang ask!

1. What are you cooking up for the Royai Big Bang 2024 event? Tell us more, tease us please!!!

2. The thing you were most excited to draw for the event?

3. You pick a question to answer! 👀❤️

So excited for the event!

Thank you!!

1. I had the privilege of being on the mod team (although all credit has to go to @fullmetalscullyy for being mvp 💕) and I also got to draw two pieces for @roseofbattles. It's an amazing fic and I can't wait for you to be able to read it on Oct 3!

2. This is going to sound like such a cop-out but I really just love drawing Riza. I tried to push myself on compositions for this project, so I hope that it was a successful effort

3. I'm gonna say the most fun thing about the event, which was getting to know everyone in the big bang server! It's been so wonderful to work with and speak to everyone involved. I'm so proud to be able to work on this with so many talented people and it's been such a pleasure to see this project take shape!

(And to the participants who had to drop, I really hope you continue your projects! I'd love to read them someday 💕)