bittersweetoak

[bittersweetoak]

Rules: post the beginning lines of your most recent 10 published fanfics (or chapters if you don’t have 10 fics!) then attempt to tag 10 people.

Thanks @aloftinthebreeze! I saw this floating around and wondered if it would ever come around to me. Unfortunately I don’t know who I would tag in this. *meh shrug* let me get on my high horse for a minute and brag about how in love with my stories, literally love them as though they are my own children. My most proud golden child though is Service Bell, so that’s where I will start.

Service Bell (The Flower and The Dragon) : Hurt No Comfort

Emerald eyes. I always loved seeing my own eyes staring back at me. And it was so exciting to see our newest arrival had those very same eyes. Jade couldn’t have been more perfect. All three of them were. My and Shadow’s little miracles. Tails made it happen for us, just a few samples of blood from the both of us and within a year we were starting a family of our own.

Maria, our oldest, wanted to make her own bowl of cereal that day. I was so distracted with Jade, I didn’t notice she had gotten her hands on the Sugar Loops and dumped them all over the kitchen table. The tittering of dried grain against wood caught me on to what was going on. I was met with her ruby eyes looking up at me in bewilderment, fully aware of her mistake. The tiny blue hoglet desperately sweeping up the frosted circles and shoving them in her peach snoot as if that was the only way she could hide her mess.

“Shadow!” I shouted.

I was met with a groan from down the hall in our bedroom.

“I know you like your sleep, but I can’t wrangle these three alone. You should see what Maria did to our kitchen.”

Devour : My First Dead Dove

A notification beeped on Shadow’s phone, and he grabbed it from the nightstand.

Reminder: Date with Sonic at 7pm.

Shadow grumbled at the fact that he had to have a reminder for everything he did. Oftentimes, the crushing weight of the darkness in his mind left him bed bound and tired when there was nothing to do. Come to think of it, it never used to be this bad.

Since Sonic’s birthday fiasco, with the Time Eater and Black Doom, Shadow’s depression had gotten considerably worse. He blamed the fact that he had to let go of Maria yet again, but it wasn’t like him to shut down like this. Usually, he found some way to keep himself moving. Right now, even with the prospect of getting to run and compete with his new boyfriend was overwhelming.

It shouldn’t be. Shadow felt guilty. If Sonic knew about the state he was in, how would he react? Would Sonic think that he didn’t care about their relationship? Would Sonic understand? Would he want space or would he want to care for Shadow?

Even In Arcadia: My First Crossover Sonic/Sleep Token

The universe is endless. A void sprinkled with infinite mysteries. To Shadow, immortality rendered it explorable without need of life-support. But for now, it was his ocean burial. He was lost and floating between various orbits, drifting in and out of consciousness, sunk deep in the thralls of apathy.

As his eyes fluttered open once more he took in the view of nothingness. The sparkling dots that encompassed every corner of his vision. Planets and moons that were too distant to make detail of. With a burst of energy, he shook off the ice that formed on his fur and warmed his frozen skin. The weightlessness once calmed him, but now he couldn’t remember what gravity felt like.

Earth. He abandoned that planet long ago after humanity proved to him how little they cared about their own survival. Between the ravages of nuclear war, rogue AI’s, corrupt autocrats who hid away in their bunkered mansions, Shadow saw no reason to keep fighting for them. Doing so was a slog at best.

Spirit of the Season: Christmas Fluff

He jolted out of bed, struggling to catch his breath and drenched in sweat. It was nights like this he wondered why he even tried to sleep. Tonight’s nightmare was that suffocating feeling of Black Doom’s influence. Every time he closed his eyes, he could still see those searing red eyes. It had been years since his last confrontation with him, but the potential for him to come back still filled him with anxiety.

He couldn’t talk to the others about his fears. They usually came back at him with overly optimistic quips about how they would win simply by virtue. All Shadow wanted was someone to take it seriously. To validate how he felt. Ultimately it was a very lonely feeling.

He looked at his phone, it was 5:24 am. There was no point in trying to get more sleep. Not like he wanted to try and get more sleep anyway. He took a long cold shower and went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. He noticed a tan and gold envelope sitting on the kitchen counter. As the room filled with the comforting sent of brewed coffee, he decided to look at the envelope.

An Ancient Shadow: New! Only one chapter

The elderly hedgehog woke up belly down on the living room floor. A puddle of dried drool stuck his face to the floor and the smell of bourbon on his breath burned his nose. He pushed himself up to see that darkness still hung over the sky. His head pounded and his muscles tensed with withdrawal.

Shadow sat himself up, propping his back against the couch and felt around the dark for the bottle he’d nursed on from the night before. When he found it, he held the empty glass in his hand and looked at it with disdain. He dropped the bottle and rolled his head back onto the cushions behind him.

It had been a few days since Silver took off to spend time with Espio. And Shadow, while insistent that he preferred the isolation, still cursed the kid for abandoning him.

Not like he shouldn’t be used to it by now. Of all things, Shadow resented his ability to love and care about people. But it’s what kept him from burning the world for their transgressions. Shadow smirked as he considered how deserving the world would be of his wrath, even now. It’s everyone’s fault that he suffered, and he only existed to suffer.

Grey Fur: Getting Old Sucks…

His cornucopia of demons came back to haunt him again. At this point he had become numb to most of them. Death, blood, murder, hopelessness. He had seen genocides, he fought in wars, he was hunted, demonized, outcast. Every battle to do the right thing fell on ungrateful ears.

Numb, that was the feeling.

Blades could cut his flesh, and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Bullets pierced his chest. They were only reminders of how he was still alive. The feeling of dying was not foreign. Every single time he woke up as if it never happened. He was alive, but it felt like he was a walking corpse.

Breathe, fight, sacrifice… remember your promise to her.

No number of centuries washed away the sound of her voice. Give them a chance, fight for them, she told him. And he still heard that every day as he watched the world burn and rebuild itself over and over again.

Fight for them. Fight for her.

Eternal Purpose.

Forces Beyond our Control: Forces Sonadow??

That face was the last thing he saw before his imprisonment. Someone who he had been at odds with since the day they met, but he honestly thought of as a friend. He knew that the other didn’t feel the same but he always hoped that would change. But in that moment that black hedgehog was threatening the ones he held most dear. It was enough to give him pause. He never hesitated before, not once. It couldn’t be true, everything the two had been through together up to this point was for nothing. And suddenly, silence.

The world was dark. An infinitely vast void, empty of all things logical. Only blue and purple lights that beckoned in every direction. The only thing he knew was the ground under his feet. The only thing he knew to do was run. As his feet moved at impossible speeds, the lights seemed to mock him. The ground under his feet, once a friend now a cold sinister foe. The one thing he held most dear, his freedom, ripped away from him in the blink of an eye. His only thought was of Shadow, was it Shadow? Was it an illusion? Reality itself bent, running the memory over and over in his mind. Narrowing down to those heartless red eyes, and that red aura. Shadow never had a red aura. Did he?

Silence became screams, screams became raw unfiltered agony, and agony gave way to defeated whimpers. For the first time, Sonic begged for death.

Shadow Work: Let’s dissect Sonic’s beliefs!

They called him The Blue Blur, The Hero of Mobius, but if you ever asked him, he would say he wasn’t special at all. He was just some guy who loved adventure, who cared about freedom and friendship and simply doing the right thing…

He suffocated on the dust of crumbled concrete and the billowing smoke. Blue tattered fur and quills pushed back the rubble, seeking sunlight. When he looked over the devastation his soul shattered. With a grit of his teeth he forced the broken pieces back into place. They need me, he told himself. I failed them… He shut the thought down. Negativity never solved anything, and it wasn’t over yet. Not yet.

These were now the ruins of Station Square. The heart of the bustling city that never slept was reduced to mere rubble. Sonic swallowed his heart and stomach as he saw the extent. Buildings reduced to piles of rock, flames that licked the insides of windows, smoke that filtered out of the crumbled structures. His senses were assaulted by the stench of burning, plastics, metals, rubber. But what quaked his resolve the most was what he heard.

Screams.

Stars Only Come Out at Night: Cute Bar Sonadow

The dimly lit bar would suffocate you with the smoke of every patron’s cigarette. The pungent woody smells of whisky and bourbon could sting your nose. You would be brought to unease by the growly looks of humans and Mobians alike, seeing anyone that didn’t fit the mold as a potential threat. But to Shadow, this was some small semblance of home.

He didn’t need to know the names, he didn’t need to remember their faces, he didn’t even have to act friendly. He was simply himself here, surrounded by the outcast and downtrodden of society. Those who were familiar with hell and saw the world through the same cynical lens he did.

These people weren’t friends, they weren’t family, but they were safe.

The bartender, a lynx named Jessie, had learned that Shadow played guitar, and she insisted that he play for them every time he came by. Shadow would have a few drinks to humor her, reminding her that he couldn’t get drunk, and would always tell her he wasn’t comfortable sharing his talent.

But after a particularly harrowing ordeal with Black Doom, something in him changed

The Reasons For Violence: My first fic, def needs some work, but I still love it.

I knew this darkness well, but the wounds were fresh. It felt like I could slice myself open and rip my own insides out. Anything to feel something other than the suffocating darkness that surrounded us. I watched Tails place Sonic’s body down on the cliff top, and as he did the long blades of grass caressed his blue quills.

A face that once annoyed me to no end. His optimism and high energy had always been so grating, and yet I desperately longed to hear his voice again. I wanted him to taunt me, call me a faker, egg me on to race him even though he would always win. Now there would only be silence. At one time, I saw Maria in his smile. Now, I see my last moment with her in his glassy eyes. The blood on my hands burned like acid.

Tails looked back at me, his eyes sunken. His bright glow was entirely gone. He’s a kid, just like her. I wanted to scream. Forcing the emotions down we silently got to work. I wanted Tails to yell at me, hate me, but he only stared at me with an intense sadness. The kind that felt like it could consume your soul. I collected wood, Tails constructed the pyre. Our souls trailed blood behind us with every step.

Memories flashed in my mind of happier times. Sonic would pull Tails in for a hug. I’d watch the two crack the dumbest jokes. The thoughts were too painful. It took so much effort to shove them down again. I didn’t deserve to feel grief. I didn’t deserve release. This was all for Tails. If anyone deserved to find some peace in this fucked up situation it was him

@qisty89

[bittersweetoak]

Do you like surrealism, good music, and general Shadow the Hedgehog angst with a side of sonadow? Go read "Even in Arcadia" by Bitter_Sweet0ak on AO3 RIGHT NOW 🫵

Author tumblr: @bittersweetoak

[bittersweetoak]

While I Write

As I am writing the next chapter for Devour, I have discovered a new Deftones song I am absolutely obsessed with!

It is so hauntingly beautiful I absolutely must put a spotlight on it!

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Absolutely love this!

18072025

unwillful wish-fulfilment

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Even in Arcadia

New chapter! Title track! Let’s get spicy with our boys in this strange world.

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Even in Arcadia: Teaser

A nook in the rock, a small cave, Shadow walked up to it and felt a rush of cold air pour from it and tickle his quills. And just inside Shadow entered and found what was his.

Sonic sat on the smooth surface of the cave floor and those deep emerald eyes welcomed Shadow, “I see you found the waterfalls without me.”

“I’m sorry.” Shadow spat the words out, unsure of what he wanted to apologize for first, “I’m sorry for doubting you, for doubting this place..” He wanted to pull out more apologies but his mind raced too fast for him to gather thought.

“You don’t have to apologize.” Sonic laughed and sprung to his feet, “All that matters is that we are together.”

As Sonic approached, Shadow trembled, “I know, I just-”

“You are getting wrapped up in your guilt. That’s always been a problem and I don’t expect that to be something you fix overnight.” Sonic threw his arms around Shadow’s neck and pulled him close, “Though I do like it better when you smile.”

Tears formed in Shadow’s eyes, and he permitted the smile to form, pressing his forehead against Sonic’s, “I can’t say it enough. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” Sonic shared the sentiment.

Shadow let a small laugh escape, “It was so cruel having to go on without you.”

“But you did, didn’t you? You fought with everything you had.” Sonic reassured.

“It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t do it without you.” More tears pushed their way out of Shadow’s eyes.

Sonic shut Shadow up with a kiss. The hero’s tongue traced the hybrids lips and lapped up the sorrow, “But it doesn’t matter now.” He whispered.

Starvation. Shadow felt it in his whole body. An aching wracking need that only the blue hero could satisfy. He went back into the kiss, longing to devour every bit of energy and love that he could pull from the other.

They mingled together, their bodies finding ways to fit into each other. Shadow needed more. More of Sonic’s taste, more of how his blue fur felt in his black and red hands, more of that hot breath on his face. Shadow pulled away and eyed the wall of the cave. He grabbed Sonic and pushed him back till the hero’s spine struck the side.

“So forceful.” Sonic laughed as Shadow nibbled under Sonic’s jaw.

“I need this, I need you.” Shadow breathed heavily into the hero’s neck.

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Mid-day rant???(spoiler?)

Still feeling the need to over explain Shadow’s disease in Service Bell in order for it to make sense why he had to die the way he did:

Shadow’s gene structure is too perfect to alter. That’s why GUN wasn’t able to control him and Gerald’s manipulation was only temporary. In order for Shadow to end his healing factor he would have to become severely injured or ill. even then Shadow would have to retire early from heroism, which Shadow refuses to do.

The gene altering to make him mortal would have to bind to damaged cells and prevent them from regrowing. Then once the majority of the damaged cells have been altered, they secrete a chemical that will reprogram the remaining cells, rendering him mortal.

The disease needed a moment of weakness in Shadow’s body to take hold.

While in progression, the disease actively slowed his healing process causing the damaged cells to reproduce faster. Adding the agent that would prevent them from regrowing would allow for when all of the damaged cells eventually died that he would die.

The disease slowed his healing factor down by destroying his soul. But Shadow’s healthy cells put up too much of a fight, thus, a civil war in his brain.

The longer he had the disease, the less of his soul remained and eventually his soul would cease to exist before his body finally gave out.

RIP Shadow

[bittersweetoak]

New Story! An Ancient Shadow.

Shadow is 1000 years old and fed up with EVERYTHING. Not to mention an elderly kook. Now he’s Silver’s problem to deal with.

One of my favorite tropes? The bright eyed young blood teams up with the jaded old man? Most definitely. Plus a fictional religion with spiritual implications. I’m super excited about this series, and I hope you all like it too.

Music inspiration: Twenty One Pilots

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I did not know I needed dragon Shadow and now I can die happy, thank you!

more doom dragon thingies

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Devour: Trauma

Let’s check back in with Sonic. I am sure his tummy is feeling pretty cummy. Hope he gets to feeling better soon.

My song of choice for this chapter?

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Service Bell: Outtakes

In celebration of my birthday I am sharing some left out/alternative scenes from Service Bell! Enjoy the heartache and angst!

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Devour: Gaia Festival

This year’s theme is: Keep the Ocean Blue!

And if anyone knows about blue, it’s Sonic the Hedgehog! He will be a guest speaker, holding a meet and greet and will be performing in the air show.

We encourage everyone to bring their children. We have workshops galore for them to learn about the earth and how to care for it. And plenty of activities including music, magic and juggling.

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Even in Arcadia: ch 5, Caramel

Let’s explore the nature of choice more. And what does it mean that The House Must Endure?

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Same Scars II

Since I came here it’s been lonely. The vast expanse of space reflects the endless whirls in my heart.

And once again they have labeled you, dangerous, untrustworthy, evil. So, they bind you and toss you away. And I sit on this cold floor beside you, on the outside looking in. Steel bars separating us.

Those sweet ruby eyes. Why do they still adore me? I am no better than the others. In fact I must be worse. The way I have wielded your name and the research accumulated from our time together. It’s all for not. A self-indulgent crime I am fully guilty of.

Shadow, are you not simply a mirror? And if I accept that, what does that say about myself. The work done by my hands, the stacks of files and paper work, and worse yet the harm I have done to you, is it all meaningless?

Same Scars, you say.

As I once said to you.

But is that true? And if so, how am I so willing to butcher you, put you on display and call myself proud of what I have done.

Use me how you wish, you say.

But I am consumed by the shame. Shouldn’t I care that my soul is laid bare upon you? Shouldn’t I care that I have painted tapestries, self-portraits in your blood? The whole world can see us. Bare and naked. Inside out.

My hands tremble. And yet you smile at me waiting to fulfill your next roll. This work may tax me, more than it taxes you.

I place my hand to the bars and you reflect my action. Our palms barely touch with metal in the way.

“It’s not that bad. Have some more faith in yourself. We will solve this together.” You reassure me.

But that fails to douse my doubts.

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Same Scars: A Prose About my Writing Journey

You lay, spread out before me, ready for dissection. And as always, you look up at me with those trusting yet weary ruby eyes. My hands tremble with the scalpel. How many times have we done this? And yet it still hurts the both of us every time.

You say, “I exist for the service of others. It is what I was created for.”

And I cannot deny that is the truth. Our time together has been transformative and damaging, an all-consuming fire that has left me hollow inside. And I return to this dissection table every time.

You are not Shadow, but a reflection of myself. A living corpse strung out on cold steel, waiting for the knife. And as before, I cut in, drawing blood, separating flesh from bone, carving shapes, seeing how far I can go.

I was not the first to dissect you, I will not be the last, but it is personal all the same. You acknowledge my pain when I harm you, and for a moment, I feel seen. But as the reflection you are, when I press that blade into your flesh, tear away the skin, I harm myself.

Same Scars.

These are the scars that drew me to you, that I could craft you into my mirror. The one most prominent, the one across your heart.

The scar has a name. It’s name is Maria.

But to me, my Maria, the scar that bubbles the skin across my chest, it’s name is Faith.

We believed in something. Something that at one time gave our lives purpose and meaning, that we threw ourselves on the altar to bleed for, that we would have died a thousand deaths to defend. And all the same, it was torn from us, violently.

Those scars, that’s where our hearts were ripped from our chests and tossed to the ground to be trampled. Caretakers, whether it was scientists or church leaders, saw us as merely tools.

Used. Abused. Broken.

And we picked ourselves back up.

But frankly, I am not as strong as you. I am bound by my humanity. And I look to you, all you can offer me is your body.

And with glazed eyes, I collect my knife, no longer shaken, now determined.

Cut it open, find its heart, do it again and again and again.

And those eyes never cease looking at me with love.

But I could never love myself.

[bittersweetoak]

Legacy, Lavenders, and Lamentations:

I have decided to launch a second series. This series follows the same AU I am working with the Children of Chaos.

Idk if anyone is interested in a Sonic universe religious/spiritual system, but I am going all out. While This Song is for You, is a modern story mirroring current Christian/Catholic/Protestant systems, while telling a story about family, illness and death. Legacy, Lavenders and Lamentations will explore a future ruled by religion, wile telling a story about aging, community and legacy.

I got lots of thoughts on religious beliefs, though I am not antithesis, I am very critical of religious structures. So if that’s something you’re interested in, I think you will have fun in my Sonic AU.

Grey Fur is coming to a close and I will be starting An Ancient Shadow next.

Music for inspiration:

A Thousand Years - Christina Perri

Invincible - Tool

Literally the whole discography of Twenty-One Pilots