What is this?

Schlocktober is a month-long writing and drawing event. It was established in 2025 as a response to a kink-free Kinktober calendar that became infamous for having way too many rules.

Its unconventional prompts and loose standards encourage creative freedom and reject morality policing in fandom spaces.

Who's running this thing?

Direct your complaints to patheticfangirl.

Why "schlock"?

It means trash/junk (affectionate), and that's the quality of content I'm striving for with these prompts. It's also fun to say.

But, y'know, if you want to take a prompt and turn it into a masterpiece of a whumpy longfic, go for it. That's creative freedom, baby.

What fandom is this for?

Schlocktober is fandom and ship neutral. At the time of posting, there are 218 different fandoms represented in previous works.

What if I want to combine prompts? What if I want to write or draw things out of order? What if I want to make a video? What if...

Go for it. Get weird. Do an interpretive dance. Mix in last year's prompts if you want to. Let the spirit of schlock move you.

What does [prompt] mean?

You tell me. It's all open to interpretation.

Is RPF okay?

Yes, so long as it's clearly fiction. See rule #3 below.

There are rules?

Just three.

No AI use. Having the plagiarism machine do your work for you is the opposite of creative. A typo-riddled mess is better than AI-written fanfiction. A stick figure drawn on the back of a napkin is better than soulless AI slop art. Believe in your own ability to produce trashy works.

Tag appropriately. 'Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings' means anything goes. 'No Archive Warnings Apply' means your work is guaranteed not to contain any of the major archive warnings (non-con, major character death, graphic violence, or underage sex).

No irl bigotry or crimes. Your characters can be as problematic as you'd like, but if you try to post a weird pro-JK Rowling essay or threatening manifesto or something you're not going in the collection. Don't kill the vibes.

Anything else I need to know?

Only the most important thing of all: Have fun.

But someone else is having fun wrong!

Shut the fuck up.

How do I participate?

There's an ao3 collection right here:

Schlocktober on ao3

Otherwise, just tag #schlocktober here or on Bluesky. DMs are open if you tag something and I miss it (I promise it's not intentional).

Will the collection stay open after October?

The collection is open 24/7/365, but you may not get approved as quickly in the off-season as mods don't check often.

I can't read your graphic!

Text version of the prompts under the cut.

I went, "What. no. she/her."

"How does that work? With she/her/hers and they/them?"

I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Well you came out as-" and I said, "I'm asexual."

She replied, "Like an amoeba, I know."

"Oh. My god. No. Mom. It doesn't- it's not the asexual you learned about in biology. I didn't come out as a single celled organism."

With heavy relief, she said "Oh, it has a different meaning?"