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brothers of the hintonverse films.
welcome to summerfest challenge!
about the challenge
for summerfest, hintonverse writers have a challenge of submitting a fic with a minimum word count of three thousand words for any hintonverse canon (the books + two films). sign ups open june 7th, 2026, close on june 14th, 2026. posting begins on july 4th, 2026 and close on july 14th, 2026.
rules for works
as stated, these challenges are meant for all of s. e. hinton's books, tim hunter's adaptation of tex and the two coppola films. characters and plots from the television show and the musical aren't applicable. you can do crossovers with hinton canons for this as well! (ie: you can cross over tex and hawkes harbor but you cannot submit a work involving any musical or television version of canon or any characters found solely in those canons.)
for this, the challenge is open. you can write about characters having fun during the summer, write about them being involved in summer activities. sky is the limit, as there's no real them to this one, if you want, there will be a bingo card available for prompts!
all works must be posted onto AO3 during the posting period. i will not accept any fics posted solely on tumblr.
the works are supposed to center on the canonical hintonverse characters. if you'd like shipping in your work, that is okay! please tag your works accordingly for the ships and canons.
this challenge is also only for participants who are 18+. i will vet everyone who wants to participate; that's why it's semi-public. if you're underage, you will not be allowed to participate and i reserve the right to deny participation if harassment or bad behavior occurs.
entries must hit the minimum for 3,000 total words. when i say that, i mean if you want to write three separate one shots, all three would have to add up to 3k or more in word count. or if you wanted to do ficlets or longer pieces, they still need to hit the 3k minimum total when they're submitted. you aren't obligated to write one whole piece that is 3k — all you need to do is get there whether it's over one work submitted or multiple.
yes, you may submit multiple works! just please submit them and then post them during the week of posting.
as stated elsewhere, your works will not be policed. that means that if someone writes a ship or tackles are more controversial subject or has a rating higher than T/PG-13, your works are fine and allowed. the only thing that is required is that you tag appropriately and rate appropriately on AO3 and you treat fellow people who are involved respectfully.
do not post your works until posting week! i understand you might get antsy, but please wait until submission week.
if you have any questions, my ask box is open.
timeframe
signups open june 7th, 2026 and close june 14th, 2026. all i require for sign up is your tumblr url, your ao3 user, and the ships you intend to focus on. that's it. once you sign up, you can more or less begin to write unless i have a follow up question/clarification.
pre week check in. we'll have a check in around june 25th to see how things are going. this is going to be a tumblr post with responses, and maybe shooting a message.
challenge close date and posting week. fics are to be posted starting at july 4th, and will go on until the july 14th. i'll be posting and promoting them, adding them to the ao3 collection if you haven't done yourself (please make sure your account is open for collections!). please feel free to comment others, give encouragement and engage.
s. e. hinton didn't really write about found families and saccharine brother relationships. she wrote about difficult relationships brothers have, whether it be darry assuming guardianship of ponyboy and being too tough and insensitive on him or soda in ponyboy's corner yet sometimes failing him in small ways or it was the motorcyle boy being a distant figure to rusty-james despite rusty-james wanting to be him so bad and getting brushed off until he gets his wish in the worst way or it was the pain of mark turning out to be a monster and byron deciding how to deal with his monstrousness or if it is tex and mason, where mason is as bad as guardian as darry is but without the legal trappings, yet he did something as bad as selling tex's horse and hurting tex immeasurably even though it was in support of what they need. to sweep it all under as a unified "aw they love each other" does a disservice to the difficulty of brotherhood, of what it means to be family, of what it really means to have a brother who loves you but hurts you at the same time.
the lack of greaser girls in the outsiders is just as deliberate as the inclusion of greaser girls in that was then, this is now and rumble fish and tex and a key part is ponyboy saying that he's behind his peers and isn't into girls. he's only "into" them after he has his coming of age. this does make rumble fish that much more interesting because rusty james hasn't reached his coming of age moment but has a definite interest in girls (romantically and sexually, might i add where ponyboy only consider a platonic relationship with cherry in his mind) and bryon is basically spending most of twttin involved with girls to some degree but once he's had his big coming of age moment, they don't even appeal to anyone. girl greasers are deliberate on how they're shown there, and even as you get to tex, jamie is already presented as tex's friend before she's ever even though of romanticaly. however she's the only major girl in the novel as compared to the bigger roles that angela and cathy in twttin and patty and cassandra in rumble fish.
physically ill in the club that this is the introductory section of tex for the novel
every hintonverse protag: and here's how my older brother hurts me over and over again along with me excusing his actions because i love him even though i am quite sure he doesn't love me
signups now open here. challenge information is here!
posting is now open! the collection is here! please remember when posting to @ hintonchallenge so it can get reblogged!
