#weekly challenge

[al-norton]

Caressed by words

[justgaara]

Gaara Week 2026!

Hosted by @justgaara​ !

Hello! And welcome to the TWELFTH YEAR of Gaara Week! A Gaara focused weekly challenge leading up to his birthday! This weekly challenge will start on the 12th of January and run until Gaara’s Birthday on the 19th of January.

Feel free to draw, write, make, cosplay, sing, dance, take screenshots, make gifs, whatever you want! As long as it has something to do with each separate day’s theme, and you create it yourself. 

Under no circumstance will AI generated imagery or text be allowed in any way, shape or form. This event is meant to inspire your own creativity and imagination. AI content is not and never will be welcome here.

The year 2026′s themes:

12th January - DAY 1 - Sprout

13th January - DAY 2 - Sun

14th January - DAY 3 - Domestic

15th January - DAY 4 - Hawk

16th January - DAY 5 - Lesson

17th January - DAY 6 - Recreation

18th January - DAY 7 - Precious

19th January - DAY 8 - Gaara’s Birthday!

Tag all your contributions with #gaaraweek and #gaaraweek2026! Make sure they’re in the first 5 tags listed otherwise they may not show up! You can also submit your creations to @justgaara​ or message me directly.

If you’re busy and don’t have time to join in everyday, then you’re welcome to pick out your favourites and just do a few. I will be following the tags all January, so if you don’t make it in time for this exact week, you are still able to complete the challenge in your own time. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask me over at @justgaara.

You are free to create whatever you want with each day’s theme, just know that @justgaara is strictly Gaara only, so if you make something that contains anyone else besides Gaara and his immediate family I won’t be able to share it on my blog.

Know that hate or negativity of any kind will not be tolerated.

Don't like this year's themes? Fear not! You can go back to any previous year and choose any of those themes! Follow this link to the Gaara Week Master List!

Thank you and have fun!

DO YOUR PART! SHARE THIS POST WITH A REBLOG!

IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE GAARA’S BIRTHDAY!

[aleksandracoffan]

Gaaraweek Day 7 - Oasis

[nonoel-art]

I think Reiju’s familiar animal would either be a raven or a borzoi dog ✨ I couldn’t decide which one 😅

[doumadono]

Silent Waves, Silent Wounds - Touya Todoroki x Reader

A/N: today's episode broke my heart and made me cry uncontrollably. With a nice prompt set for this week's challenge in a community I'm part of, I decided to combine the two. I just hope my Touya will survive. Gif was made by @gamergirl-niffler

MY HERO ACADEMIA

Touya's first breaths of freedom were laced with the sterile scent of antiseptics and the distant echoes of calamity.

Beneath the flickering streetlights of Musutafu, shadows twirled across the damp pavement, casting the world in veils of half-truths and murmured secrets.

It was upon a night cloaked in despair that Touya Todoroki, shrouded in the remnants of his shattered past, escaped the suffocating confines of what should have been a sanctuary. The hospital, ostensibly a bastion of healing and hope, had morphed into nothing but a prison, all under the malevolent gaze of All For One.

In a moment fueled by raw desperation and a primal urge for freedom, Touya, with hands trembling and heart pounding against the cage of his ribcage, ignited the very foundations that had ensnared him. Flames, hungry and unrestrained, licked upwards, clawing at the structure with a ferocity. Fire roared through the hallways, a fierce, unforgiving inferno that consumed everything in its path — medical charts, synthetic bed linens, the false promises of recovery.

As the inferno raged behind him, Touya stumbled into the cold embrace of the night.

The city loomed large and indifferent, its countless lights flickering like distant stars, unreachable and cold. Each step was a battle, his body a map of wounds both fresh and long endured, scars that told tales he could barely remember, tales of a mere boy who once dreamed of heroism but found himself ensnared in a nightmare of his father's making.

He moved through the shadows, a spectral figure haunted by the echoes of his past and the uncertain horrors of his future. Tonight, the world was both his enemy and his ally, hiding him from those who would seek to drag him back to that hellish place, yet offering no comfort from the relentless grip of his solitude and sorrow. His face, marred with scars that told stories of a tragic past and unresolved pain, was not one that people usually turned to for comfort.

As he navigated through the dimly lit streets, his eyes were cautious and wary of the stares that followed him like specters.

It was then he saw you - a girl sitting alone on the curb, your sobs cutting through the muffled sounds of the city like a siren’s call. You were young, perhaps no older than he, with tears streaking your cheeks and your shoulders trembling under the weight of your unseen burdens.

Despite his fears and the fresh pain of his own memories, something within him stirred - a remnant of the hero he once aspired to be. Hesitant, he approached you, his voice barely above a whisper after he cleared his throat, trying to sound normal, even though he knew it was no longer possible. “Hey, are you okay?”

You jerked your head up, your eyes wide with a mixture of fear and surprise as they landed on his disfigured features.

For a heartbeat, Touya thought you would scream, run away, or recoil in horror.

But then, something remarkable happened - your expression softened, and your initial fright melted into a sad, understanding smile. “Not really,” you confessed, wiping your tears away with the back of your shaking hand. “My dad… he drinks too much. And my mom, she doesn’t really care. She threw me out tonight. Said she’d had enough of me being useless.”

The words struck a chord in Touya. Abandonment, pain, a longing for something better - themes that resonated deeply within his own life. Sitting heavily beside you on the cold curb, he offered you a timid smile, one that seemed almost out of place on his scarred visage. "I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a mixture of warmth and a chilling detachment born from years of conditioning under his father’s harsh regime. “I… I know what it’s like to feel like you have no one.”

You studied him, your reddened eyes lingering on his scars with a curiosity born from your own pain rather than judgement. “What happened to you?” you asked gently, perhaps too gently for the horror that his story contained.

Touya looked away, his eyes tracing the patterns of light and shadow on the ground. “I don’t remember everything,” he confessed. “But I know I was trying to prove something to my dad. It didn’t end well, as you can see.”

You sat in silence, the world around you bustling with life, yet oblivious to the shared moment of grief between two strangers.

People passed by, their glances sharp and sometimes filled with a disdain that neither of you were unfamiliar with.

Sensing Touya’s discomfort, you made a decision. “Let’s go somewhere else,” you suggested, a spark of resolve lighting up your tear-stained face. “Somewhere away from prying eyes. I know a nice place, if you'd like to join me.”

Touya nodded casually, “I think I’d like that. I have nowhere to be anyway.”

Without another word, you stood, holding out you hand to help him up. Your touch was warm, a stark contrast to the coldness he had come to expect from the world.

Together, you walked through the deserted streets, your steps in sync, until the city sounds faded into the background, replaced by the soothing rhythm of waves crashing against the shore.

Beneath the expansive canopy of the night sky, the beach lay deserted, bathed in the ethereal, silvery glow of the moon. The ocean before them transformed into a shimmering tapestry, each wave weaving threads of light across the dark canvas of water. It was here, with the cool sand cradling your steps and the vast, relentless sea stretching into infinity, that you discovered a fleeting sanctuary — a momentary escape from the ravages of your tormented existences.

As you settled onto the sand, the ocean's eternal murmurs surrounding you, Touya found himself unexpectedly comforted by the raw, natural beauty of the scene. Yet, he was taken aback when you revealed that it was not just chance that brought you to this tranquil haven in the dead of night.

“I come here often, especially after fights at home,” you confessed softly, your eyes reflecting the moonlight like fragments of a broken mirror. “The sound of the waves… it calms the storm inside me. Maybe it can do the same for you.”

Touya hesitated before his voice broke the silence. "I'm like these waves," he murmured, his voice tinged with a haunting sadness. "Crashing again and again, with no control, no end. I don't even remember why I started… what I was trying to prove." His gaze was lost to the horizon, where the dark sea met the darker sky, his face a mask of sorrow sculpted by the silvery light.

"It's hard, isn't it?" you said softly, pulling your knees closer to your chest, feeling the chill of the night seeping through your clothes. "Feeling like you're caught in a storm with no shelter in sight. I sit here, night after night, wondering if the screaming will ever stop, if there will ever be a night without tears, without all this emptiness."

"Does it help? Coming here, hearing the waves?" Touya asked.

"It doesn't stop the pain," you admitted, "but sometimes, it makes it bearable. The sea doesn't judge, doesn't demand. It just is. And for a little while, I can just be too, without worrying about the next wave that might knock me down."

"I wish I could remember what peace feels like," he confessed, his words blending with the whisper of the wind.

You reached out, your hand brushing against his, a small gesture of comfort in the overwhelming vastness of your shared solitude.

"Maybe we can't go back to who we were," you suggested, your voice a tentative whisper against the symphony of the sea. "But perhaps we can find new reasons to look forward to the sunrise."

Touya's hand trembled slightly under yours, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he gripped your hand, his hold tentative but needing the connection. "I'd like that," he said, a flicker of a smile ghosting across his lips, as fragile and fleeting as a wave’s crest as a single tear rolled down his cheek. "To look forward to something, to hope for something better."

[hotgirlsunny]

✨Weekly Challenge Winner!✨

Our challenge theme this week was 'Time Travel⌛' and @silkentine won with this amazing comic about Sanji and Reiju!

Thank you so much for participating! This was so amazing and incredibly impressive for a week-long challenge! She's received a month of discord nitro as a reward as well as a special role in our server.

We're making a few exciting changes to our weekly challenge and are taking a break next week. We're hosting a Valentine's Day event on our server in the meantime! If you'd like to join in, our discord is open to anyone interested regardless of your participation in our main events!

Click here to see our runner ups and see you next week with our challenge results!

[captain-m81]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Shane comes out to Montreal during training camp after the summer at The Cottage. He does it before practice thinking he can just say it and it will be over. Rip off the band-aid. Private life is private no big deal.

Unfortunately for Shane, he doesn't know he's autistic and the "panic attacks" he thought he had under control were really autistic meltdowns from an overwhelmed nervous system.

When the tension in the locker room & practice creates a cascading effect in Shane's mind he experiences one of the worst episodes since childhood.