I know your thinking “This is dark for a Christmas gift”, but I spend an entire day during the holidays watching murder mysteries soooooooo~
Thank you for being such a kind and supportive mutual and just someone who I can generally feel comfortable opening up to about head-canons and stuff xx I honestly really love your work and drawing you lots of little gay gifts and I just hope you enjoy the holidays x
😍 😍 Yes!! I've never rambled about an AU on tumblr before—I blabbed some stuff on my friend's discord ages ago but I've made changes since then~
So Shadow's the virtuoso of the world's biggest contemporary ballet company, meaning he's GOOD good. He can walk on his toes all day, leap higher than his height, chain like 24 pirouettes without a single quill out of line—basically his form and technique, all flawless. His peers hate him, want him and want to be him all at once.
But among masters there's a clear thing holding him back from going down in history as one of the greatest: emotional expression. He treats his craft like a science and not the art form it is. He's pretty much an angel made out of ice. (Whispers 'Robotnik family trauma subplot' so loud that I hurt my throat)
His instructor Ms Vanilla decides to push him with the company's new production, The Prince and the Pauper, reimagined as a fantastical romance. Thing is they need someone who's a perfect physical match for Shadow, to be the Pauper to his Prince.
Enter Sonic stage left, a delinquent who would just spend his days parkouring around and getting into trouble before Vanilla discovers him. It's unprecedented to drop a company outsider into a major role, but Sonic's clearly as much of an athletic genius as Shadow, just without the privilege of ballet training his whole life. Vanilla knows Sonic's a worthy partner—for Shadow though, it's hate at first sight lmaoo
He thinks Vanilla's lost her mind but is too well-trained to defy her openly, so he tries to intimidate Sonic into quitting by pushing him to the limit in every private practise session. It totally backfires—Sonic meets all of his challenges with relish and becomes skilful within weeks, and Shadow resents how impressed he is with this blue nobody.
The UST between them is off the charts and Sonic wants to get to know his partner, but Shadow's in denial. It doesn't matter that they spend 12 hours a day literally wrapped around each other and sweaty from exertion, they have to stay professional!
But when you do spend so much time with a stranger they can't be a stranger for long—Sonic hears about Shadow's tragic past where his sister Maria (who of course loved ballet) and father Gerald died, and Shadow's now trapped under the control of his evil trustee Ivo Robotnik. And Shadow learns how Sonic was a high school dropout, not by choice but because he was orphaned very young and had to find ways to support himself and his little brother Tails.
And they're helping each other by being a distraction to their life problems, but after they start to really care about the other, Sonic wants to free Shadow from Robotnik, and Shadow wants to set Sonic and his little family up with a good life.
If I do write this then I know how to end it, with a stellar opening night production of the ballet. And I got some ideas for angst and drama, but this post got long so I'll bench those for now :3
My first instinct was to literally put Shadow and Amy on the moon, but that probably wouldn’t end well, so I’ll go with this instead:
Sonic had been hoping Amy would move on from him on her own, but after enough years, he had to gently but firmly turn her down for good. As kind as he was about it, she was still devastated. Friends tried their best to help her through it.
The one that stuck out to her was Shadow’s gift. He gave her a pot of gladiolus flowers for her garden, explaining that they symbolized strength of character, faithfulness, and moral integrity, the very qualities he knew would help her through it. Amy was touched by the gift and put all she had into caring for them, but there was one problem.
Despite all her gardening expertise, she couldn’t get them to bloom.
Sure, she kept them alive, but she could never see their full potential. She hid them from him as best she could out of shame. In time, though, he stopped by to check on them and inevitably found out. He surprised her by saying he’d stop by again at dusk. Although puzzled, Amy agreed.
Shadow returned, as promised. He used Chaos Control to bring her to a section of his own garden that she’d never seen before. He apologized for neglecting to mention he’d given her night gladiolus, gesturing to the breathtaking menagerie of night-blooming plants he kept. The light of the full moon was more than enough to highlight the beauty of the veritable field of flowers and the kind, thoughtful, romantic, soft-spoken man who cared for them--and for her.
Something in her heart shifted that night. She admired her own gladiolus every night before bed, and she couldn’t help but think of someone else who embodied the qualities it symbolized.
Shout-out to @realperson022 and @chippzter for saying such sweet things in this post! I'm so glad we've stumbled into each other bc geeking out about Sonadow and Kpop is such a blast lol. Thank you both for checking up on me and for the messages and tags! Thank you especially for being so patient 🙏 You are beautiful, sweet, talented people and I love chatting with y'all! I purple you 💜
Right now I'm working real hard on a gift 🎁 Then I'll (finally) be answering some asks!
After that, my goal is to write Sonadow Scenarios on a more regular-ish basis, maybe even open up requests 👀 I'll make a post about it when that happens~
I would like to post drawings once a week but that's pretty ambitious for me lol
Before I take off again, I would just like to share one of the best comments I've ever gotten on a project 🥲
hmmm here's a little snippet from a fic I'm writing for @chaosiscrazy's au :D
random wip sentence ask game
Holding his phone in one hand, Sonic shivered and wrapped his cardigan tighter around him. On the device’s screen, he had a phone number pulled up, his thumb hovering over the call button. Standing under the shade of the pergola’s roof, he turned his head to glance at his partner.
Despite the grass still being soaked in morning dew, Shadow sat cross legged on their lawn on the other end of the yard. His back was to the blue hedgehog as he watched over their small charge, who was playfully chasing after the floating cotton.
After you've seen the Twitter Takeover (I loved it), what are your thoughts/reaction?
Oh my God, you are not asking me this right now. Not after I literally shed a tear after who knows how many months (it's been over a year since I've cried). I just took a shower and now I find myself reading this question.
What are my thoughts on it you ask.
I have two reasons to think this was the best Twitter Takeover of all time. It surpassed all my expectations. Every single response was incredible and I found myself gawking and laughing so many times I think I've scared my cat (yes, breaking news: I got a cat and her name is Lolly! She's a demon, by the way. Worst cat ever, likes to chomp toes.). But back to your question, one of the reasons why I loved it was how genuine the answers felt to the characters and how everything was delivered.
Sonic and Shadow's moments were my favorite ones, of course, but everything else was priceless. Some mentioned details I have noticed before and felt truly happy about how they were acknowledged (like Shadow insisting Knuckles is stronger than Sonic and him spending rings on frivolous things, just as he simply asked Sonic to spend rings on what he wanted to eat - with Super Sonic mentioned, huh!). They validated a great number of things I've been thinking of (and writing about since 2020). But I think the greatest moment of them all was the final one, like I believe everyone else agrees with. For two reasons, too (and yes, I haven't said my other second reason yet, but I'll get there!).
One was because of how heartfelt Shadow's line was delivered as, with so much sincerity I could only stare at my screen without any sort of reaction. The others' responses to it, especially Tails', left me smiling that my vision started to blur. Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's how it led to the second reason of it. And the second reason of how this Twitter Takeover was so meaningful and special to me.
Because what Shadow said was exactly how I believed it happened. And how Shadow has never told anyone that, not until today apparently.
Plus, he said something that I have conveyed in my latest story's first act and the final one. In particular, the final one is the one that I found myself opening the file again to read right after Shadow delivered one of the most important lines I've ever heard from him. Because it's where everything comes full circle. He made everything clear, just how I wrote something back in May, though not in the same words (that'll be released soon!) - I've already posted hints about it here, here, here and here. I think that was one of the reasons why I got emotional, because we write what we want to have explained in words, right? So, today, Shadow gave me the answer I managed to get right. Somehow.
All the little moments between him and Sonic were so fun to hear about, in special how the interview started and ended. Those were amazing. Then yeah, I think you have my answer. Best Twitter Takeover ever for a lot of reasons - personal and not so much.
I’m still not elaborating on my angst head-canon I mentioned with Jet during pride month….but please accept this out of context thing I did for @realperson022 💖 thank you for all your kind words and support x
