Just Sin

Event Fan Art by @castkorb and @oryu404​

We're excited to announce that we've teamed up with @dailystingue on X for Shadowlight Week 2025, a celebration of the friendship/relationship between Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney of Sabertooth!

The event will run from April 28 th 'til May 4th (May the fourth be with you). An entire week!

This year, we asked you guys for help with prompts, and you delivered!

Prompts we picked from votes and suggestions are:

💜 Hope / Lost

💛 Contrast / Unison

💜 Angel / Demon

💛 Childhood / Future

💜 Lock / Key

💛 Secret / Intimacy

💜 Flowers / Genderbend

A huge thank you to everyone who filled out the interest check!

As always, the prompts are for inspiration only. Feel free to submit others if they work better for you!

We’ll be accepting:

Fanfics (any length and in any language)

Poetry

FanArt (any kind)

Edits (edits, aesthetics, videos, memes)

Headcanons

Playlists

Social Media Posts

Incorrect quotes

Manga Coloring

Animations

Event Rules:

All content must be original and previously unpublished. Updates to an existing multi-chapter fic are not eligible, but standalone one-shots from an established work/AU are fine.

Pairing or Brotp only.

There should be no character bashing of any kind. This event is meant to be fun and positive.

Please tag all triggers and adult content appropriately.

We will not accept any work that contains incest or pedophilia.

You may enter as many times as you want!

Late entries will be accepted!

We will track the tag shadowlightweek2025 so make sure it’s in your first five, or mention @shadowlight-week​ in your post.

If you have any questions, you can reach out to us through Asks. We’ll be happy to answer them.

Our event page has a complete list of rules and answered questions.

Have fun, and please reblog to help us get the word out!

“You’re blushing.” “Yeah, so? Never seen anyone fall for your charm before?”

“Are you okay? You look a little…” “I’m fine!”

A tries to hide their blush from B by turning their head away, but the latter doesn’t let them.

“I can’t help it (when you look at me like that).”

“Are you actually blushing?” “No! Shut up.”

“You, uhh… You… Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you… I mean…”

A smiles fondly when B starts to blush and draws them closer, allowing them to hide in their embrace.

“Awww. Did I fluster you?”

“This never happened, do you understand?! If I find out you mentioned this to anyone, I’ll…”

It appears A made B blush, and in response their own cheeks heat up.

“Stoooop. Stop making me all…” “All… what?”

“Just admit that…” (e.g. you like when I look at you like that.)

A has never blushed when they asked that question/made such a comment before. (Before what?/Has something changed?)

“… You’ll never let me live this down, will you?”

A touches their own heated cheeks (, maybe to confirm that they really are blushing. Not that they didn’t already know.)

“Why am I blushing?!”

A and B try to figure out who can make the other person blush first/the hardest.

“I call bullshit. There’s no way you never blush. No way.”

“Months/Years later, and you still make me blush.”

“I’m not blushing. It’s from the cold.” “Yeah. Sure.”

“Sorry. I just... like seeing that I have an effect on you, I guess.”

“God. You look adorable/etc. (when you’re blushing).”

A is curious/confused/etc. Once, they easily were able to make B blush. Nowadays, it seems almost impossible.

Please fill this out if you are a content creator in the Gratsu or Stingue fandoms, or would like to be!

Yes, there were some shitty, problematic elements from the start (like the goblins), and yes they were marketable as hell, but I’d say the first few books successfully captured some elements of whimsy, and the humor in them hit the right notes for kids. The first few are not great books but they’re also not terrible. (The later ones were bloated and awful tho, imo).  

And of course certain books are published because they’re marketable but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically bad books or lack any entertainment value. 

The thing is she doesn’t have to have had bad books to be a bad person. Someone that wrote some decent books that kids liked can still be a shitty person and we need to learn and accept that shitty people can and do make good art or at least quality entertainment. 

The reason we need to recognize bad people make good art rather than create a revisionist history that every single thing the person has done was terrible, is because we have to be comfortable with criticizing and condemning (and sometimes boycotting) creators even when things they made were beloved to us at some point, even when there was some good or some entertainment value in the things they created. 

I think it’s good to look back at her work with a more critical eye but the first few books were actually decent (regardless of yes, a few shitty flaws like the goblins, and regardless of being super merchandisable). That doesn’t change that she’s still a bigoted dickhole. And we don’t have to pretend everything she created was awful to treat her like a bigoted dickhole. 

It’s argued as if the people who “realized” that Harry Potter was Bad All Along were picking up on some…single big quality that includes both the bigotry of the author and the quality of the story, worldbuilding, et cetera. It’s absolutely bizarre.

But, all of that aside. Holy shit, no, no, no, Harry Potter was not a toy marketing scheme, what on earth, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve heard all day.

The category of children’s lit was on death’s door in the late 90’s. YA was straight up not a thing in the way it is today. Book series still don’t get toy lines by themselves, and the fact that the book-to-movie adaptation of Harry Potter was successful is still kind of a weird fluke. Nobody is publishing a book counting on a film adaptation that can be turned into a toy line, and they sure as hell weren’t in 1997. If that worked James Patterson or whoever the hell that guy is would be doing it.

There are a LOT of series that fit the “capitalist marketing scheme” idea a lot better than Harry Potter (read: Lorien legacies, the unwanteds, wolves of the beyond, fablehaven, wings of fire, that series a while back that was about like animal shapeshifters or something? With a different big name YA author behind every book?) and they haven’t successfully marketed anything except themselves.

Please, not every piece of media that has problems has to have a capitalist conspiracy theory at its core

Commission Info

Ko-fi | Commissions

Twitter

I’ve encountered a lot of feedback over the years.

Feedback that’s good, bad, or cocktail of both — from the 15 workshops I joined in college (including my time in the MFA) to my current experiences as a copywriter.

I’ve also learned how to get the most out of all that feedback. So this week I decided to share six types of story feedback and what do with each.

The Opinion is completely subjective feedback, and its purpose is to gauge what is and isn’t working for readers on a personal level. Isolated opinions offer some insight, but in general, you’ll want to pay attention to the patterns that emerge from multiple readers’ opinions.

Focus on: doubling down on the things your readers tend to like, and consider dialing back the things they don’t like.

Ignore: suggestions for phrasings, story elements, or plot directions that are purely a matter of taste and go counter to your vision.

The Misdiagnosis is feedback where the reader has noticed something wrong in your writing, but they struggle to identify the issue — so they “misdiagnose” the problem. It’s tempting to think this is a False Alarm (#6), but this type of feedback is actually very common and well intentioned, so be on the lookout!

Focus on: reverse engineering the true problem by closely reading the feedback and the passage it applies to. After identifying the real issue, work on a solution.

Ignore: their original diagnosis and any suggestions that are now irrelevant.

The Bad Remedy gets one step further than the Misdiagnosis. Here, the reader correctly identifies the problem, but the solution they provide either doesn’t solve the issue, is overly subjective (see #1), or has a negative ripple effect that the reader didn’t expect.

Focus on: determining a new solution that works for your story and style.

Ignore: any solutions that aren’t right for your story.

The Right Cure is the best kind of feedback, because it not only properly diagnoses a problem in your story, but also provides an effective solution. This feedback is easy to identify when it hits like a lightning-strike revelation — but sometimes the accuracy of the feedback or the tone of its delivery puts us on the defensive. We might try to write it off as an Opinion or False Alarm, but it’s important to accept the Right Cure when it’s offered.

Focus on: following the feedback. You can still tweak or build upon the solution if better ideas come to you; just make sure you’re still solving the problem.

Ignore: any temptation to dismiss the feedback out of pride or a feeling of being wronged due to an uncouth delivery.

The Divination is any feedback that provides the right solution to a problem, even when the reader misdiagnoses (or doesn’t try to diagnose) the problem itself. This often arises when a reader critiques mostly by feel, and while they may struggle to articulate why something is wrong, they feel something is wrong and are able to identify an effective solution. This type of feedback can often look like an Opinion since it lacks justification, but it’s always worth considering.

Focus on: identifying whether their suggestion improves the story, and if it does, implement it.

Ignore: the feedback if you’re confident it’s just an Opinion that doesn’t align with your vision for the story.

The False Alarm is feedback that tries to solve a problem that isn’t there. This type generally comes from a reader who’s distracted, reading too quickly, or trying too hard to find things to criticize (which can occasionally happen in formal critique settings like workshops, where some feel pressure to always contribute). Note, however, that this type of feedback is rare; what you think is a False Alarm is more often than not a Misdiagnosis, a Bad Remedy, or even a poorly delivered Right Cure.

Focus on: identifying whether the feedback actually is a False Alarm or something legitimate.

Ignore: the feedback, but only if you’re absolutely confident it’s a False Alarm. (If you find yourself receiving a lot of False Alarms, reflect on whether you’re dismissing too much feedback, and if you aren’t, consider looping in some new readers.)

Some Parting Rules of Thumb

Now that you have a grasp on these different types of feedback, I want to leave you with some general rules of thumb for revision:

Assume all feedback has the potential to improve your story, even if parts of it are misguided.

Know that everyone is capable of providing helpful feedback, even if they’re less experienced than you are.

Remember your vision as a writer matters, so don’t feel obligated to follow feedback that pushes your story in a direction that contradicts what you set out to create.

Never mistake the need for feedback as a shortcoming; instead, recognize it as an opportunity. Everyone needs feedback, but not everyone is willing to seek it out.

Good luck, and good writing, everybody! I hope this helps you sift through the feedback on your next story.

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