Writers Should NOT Feel Guilty About:

After many years, my „first“ Day on tumblr again.

WIP Weekend WIP Snip Share!

Didn't have time to do any WIP games this weekend, but here's a bit I've written for my Steddie (-Jonathan) fic. Because I thought, "huh, you know what this steddie angst fic needs? A Stobin fight."

Enjoy (or... you know)

~~~

Context: As Robin finally convinced Steve to tell Eddie how he feels, they're shocked when they go back to the party and find Jonathan and Eddie making out on the couch.

“Everyone’s gone home,” Robin consoles, tone grating against his skin. He doesn’t need her pity, or anyone else’s. Besides, Steve wouldn’t even be in this mess if it wasn’t for her. Meddling in his love life has never worked out for Steve in the past, and he doesn’t understand why he convinced himself it would be different this time just because it was Robin.

Because why would anyone, let alone someone like Eddie, be interested in dating Steve Harrington, King of Assholes and Jocks. Compared to someone like Jonathan, someone who is so clearly a better match for Eddie, Steve brings nothing to the table.

He laments himself for believing anything she ever said about how Eddie apparently looks at him when his head’s turned, or how he always goes out of his way to make Steve laugh. None of it was real. It was all just lies. Bullshit.

“Then why are you still here?” It’s colder than he meant. Steve can already feel the crown sliding back into place. It’s sickening how much he misses it, an old, awful comfort he worked so hard to shed. And yet, it feels so fucking good to wear it again. 

If only it wasn’t Robin.

Heavy silence weighs against him. It’s not the response he expected. People always have a reaction when they meet King Steve– whether it’s disdain from the kids he tormented, pride from his asshole friends, or disappointment from people like Nancy. 

Steve still hasn’t turned around, his back to the door Robin had come through to find him. The inability to read her eats at his nerves. He denies the sharp urge to look at her– to consume and study every twitch of her mouth, every crinkle of her eyes– to know what she’s thinking right now. But that would mean giving her the same opportunity which is something Steve can absolutely not allow her.

The crown is a cold comfort if yet still a bit ill fitting. It’s been too long since Steve’s had to wield it as a sword and shield to fend off the people closest to him. He’s forgotten how. It wobbles on his head no matter how hard he clings to it. The heat of shame still stings behind his eyes. Steve hates it. So he clings to the anger, if he can’t cling to anything else.

He’s ripped from his seething by a firm hand on his shoulder. Robin’s next to him now, appearing almost out of nowhere. Steve wonders how long the silence lingered, if she said anything to him as he was stuck in the swirl of ruminating thoughts.

“Steve, look at me.”

Brushing her hand off his shoulder, Steve storms across the kitchen. She can’t look at him, she can’t see him. He can’t talk to her with all the shit clogging his throat. It’s all bubbling up inside him, the way it always does, thoughts and feelings he can’t name or pin down long enough to examine, not that he’d ever want to in the first place. Robin needs to leave before it bursts from him like a monster crawling through a hole in the ceiling, ready to hurt anyone in its path. Like a stupid, bigoted boy willing to throw a punch in an alleyway.

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

when i forget to log into ao3 and i have to click proceed to see an adult fic, i actually get a kick out of it. like i am an old timey queen and my bard is apologetic: “gentle lady, dicks doth touch in this next ballad. would you prefer another?” and i give him a gesture of command like, “nay, you may proceed, minstrel. bring forth the tale of dicks”

First you procrastinate on the task because it is not a big enough deal to get done urgently. Then you procrastinate on the task because it has become such a big deal that doing it is overwhelming. You would think that this implies a middle point where it is just big enough of a deal to get done easily, however the inherent perversity of the universe's causal geometry prevents this

Thinking about that prompt i found on TikTok about faking your death and then coming back and knocking on your best friend's door like nothing happened.

That but make Steve fake his own death accidentally, so he is clueless why Robin is freaking out when he goes to visit her.

(with a side of Steve going feral a la Jonh Wick and Die Hard over his car, i'm so normal this, so normal, it's not like i use this like an oportunity to make a b99 reference, pff, Gertie who??? )

Like, i know nothing about witness protection and how faking your death would work, but, but- let's use our imagination.

Steve's father being a lawyer and messing with someone he shouldn't have. He ends up and because of this, the cops think they could go after Steve too.

Which, true, Steve has an accident that destroys his car (RIP BMW, I love you, but this is for plot reasons, you would be missed), so now he has to be under witness protection.

Steve, like the ball of repressed trauma and anger issues that he is, decides that the best thing to do is go after the people who destroyed his car, a la John Wick; because:

Going after them to avenge his father: no, thank you.

Going after them to avenge his car: yes, let me go for my bat.

That without forgetting to leaving a cryptic message to Eddie's and Robin's voicemail.

While Steve is having his own action movie with handling the 'mob' and cops that kinda want to help, kinda don't care; the rest of the Party is freaking out because "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO ONE INVITED HIM TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH SOMEONE AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS CAR WAS FOUND IN THE QUARRY???".

Dustin asks Robin if something happened with Steve during christmas, like kissing under the mistletoe or something, only for Robin to say she didn't invite him because Eddie did, but Eddie hears that and goes, "Uh, no? I chicken out; I thought you would invite him after I didn't."

They asking around if someone invited Steve because it's kind of public knowledge that his parents suck, but no one did, and he hasn't come to the Party's Christmas party yet, so he's probably mad at them.

But Eddie and Robin are having a Bad Feeling™ because of the voicemails, and Hopper is being called to identify a car that it was found in the quarry that morning.

And Hopper knows that car, he has seen that car since Steve was a dumb teenager that got his parties busted by the chief. He hasn't seen Steve for a while. He wasn't at the christmas party. Where was he again?

The Party still isn't in the know, but Hopper is already looking for Steve but he can't find him and-

Remember that i told you Steve was in witness protection? Well, i think sometimes they fake their deaths, i'm not sure, but this is the perfect oportunity and cover to pretend that Steve died.

So the government uses it, and The Party doesn't know because different branch of the government and all that.

When Hopper founds out he doesn't know how to tell the other that Steve had an accident and they are still looking for him in the quarry; but they already know, they used Dustin's cerebro to find out what was going on.

Everyone is devastaded, and then, Eddie and Robin hear their voicemail again only to bring out that maybe it wasn't an accident, that maybe Steve did it on porpose.

And grief, pain, mourning, sadness, anger. Just a lot of feelings.

Meanwhile, Steve is kicking ass and using the Bad Guys™ headquarters like his own personal rage room.

Blablabla something something something.

Steve let out his anger, has a few personal realisations, lets himself think about the trauma he's endured all those years and comes back like a new person, ready to confess his feelings for Eddie Munson and let people care about him.

The first thing is go talk with Robin, she's probably worried about him and she probably knows better than him to help him confess to Eddie.

So he goes, only to be utterly confuse by the amount of tears, snot, yells and hugs that Robin welcomes him. It's not like he died.

Then Robin is flabbergasted by his Audacity.

Both of them fall into a bickering that makes Robin cry harder because she thought she wouldn't have this again and Steve starts to cry because Robin is crying and now they're both crying.

Needless to say, they catch up about all the things that happened in both ends.

It's not the end of tears, hugs and yelling, though.

Just give Steve all the confort that he refused to accept because he didn't think he deserved and that people didn't know how to give.

Fluff, Fluffy, Fluff. A bit of Steddie here.

Yeah, that's all.

Fuck yes!

This was and will always be my hardest hyperfixation. The funny thing is, my best friend who does not have hyperfixations (no adhd brain in her skull, just a „boring“ and lovely brain), had one: the mediocre book she read when she was 13.

Nobody understands the bond between a girl and the mediocre book she read when she was 13 years old.

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

You WILL write your WIP

steddie brainrot taking over me fr

I don't know when I'll have the time to write this, but:

CW: Minor Mentions of Blood, Character Illness (Hanahaki), Use of Queer as a Slur

Hanahaki AU. Steve develops hanahaki over Eddie. It's not because, oh, Eddie's probably straight and doesn't know I'm into guys...

No, it's because, oh, Eddie doesn't want to be very close to me due to previous hangups he has.

Cut to Steve coughing up dark purple, almost black petals. Soft and wet and sticky to his fingers. Then, after some time, they become small buds. Small black rose buds with gentle, prickly thorns sprouting in his throat.

People around them find out quickly, very quickly, that Steve is experiencing Hanahaki. Everybody, sans Eddie himself, finds out they're related to Eddie—even as these black roses symbolize hatred, even as they come close to death and mourning in their meaning—they're still perfectly Eddie in color, shape, and beauty. Obviously, since nobody wants Steve to, y'know, die, they tell him to confess to Eddie.

However, Steve is faced with a secondary option at one of his doctor visits. A surgery. The petals can be removed, the thorns torn out and tossed, his lungs cleared...but his brain shocked empty of all traces of Eddie. All traces. He wouldn't know Eddie as he is now. He wouldn't know Eddie from when Dustin would ramble on and on and on about his new guy best friend. He wouldn't know Eddie as the mischievous troublemaker in high school.

And he especially wouldn't know Eddie as his childhood best friend that he drifted apart from many, many years ago. Nobody but them knows that part.

And soon, through decision, through the fear of death...Steve chooses to forget that part, too. He chooses to remove Eddie from his conscious. Every last part of him. With the decision made, the party members keep Eddie away, Robin goes through Steve's room and hides anything he has of Eddie's—including a little memory box of their childhood photographs, little trinkets he'd receive from Eddie, doodles and crushed flowers...crushed flowers that look similar to the ones Steve coughed up with a note attached to them: "For the prince to my prince. Mama said they're for royal people, and I thought they were beautiful. These are for you, because you're beautiful, too."

Steve kept all of it. Tucked neatly away for nobody but him to see. All these delicate, baby confessions of two queer kids in rural America, waiting for the right moment; though never getting that after a fall out in their relationship.

According to Eddie, the two drifted away due to rhetoric Steve's dad was spouting; rhetoric that was being passed on and spat right at Eddie's face from Steve's mouth. Even if he saw Steve change during and after Vecna, he'll always remember the last big fight in their friendship; the day he was called a queer.

When Eddie finds out, he's beyond devastated that Steve would make the choice to forget him. He gets it, Steve didn't want to die. He knows. But now he doesn't even have a spot in Steve's life? It cuts deep, it hurts.

He knows so much about Steve. Little details. Favorite things. Where his moles are. How he styles his hair. What he looked like before braces, before Tommy, before high school bullshit, before all the traumas. He knows who Steve really is, sweet and nurturing and nearly unbearably kind.

And now Steve doesn't know him. Doesn't love him.

He wishes he knew, because then they wouldn't be in this mess.

But Eddie gets to fall in love with Steve all over again. Shake his hand and introduce himself. Even though he wishes they could meet each other as kids, just like they did. Because Eddie remembers a dorky, geeky, self-conscious, timid little kid quietly asking him if they could play princes on the playground. And Steve remembers Eddie at twenty-one, full grown and stubborn; not the same shy kid, not the bubbly kid...just a man haunted.

But! Plot twist!!!

What if, yeah, Steve does forget Eddie...initially?

He meets Eddie again, for the first time. He gets to know Eddie. He begins a friendship with Eddie.

And then he begins getting these awful...awful migraines being around Eddie. Flashes of fractured, half-formed memories of some kid with big brown eyes and a shaved head, of a kid crouched down in wood chips trying to find a guitar pick he had dropped. Little glimpses of smiles: some with teeth missing, some with teeth growing back in, some with blood-stained lips, some with a blue tint. There's splintering voices, a little boy's and an older man's and a squeaky, pubescent voice—he hears his own name crackled around the edges, hears Prince Stevie cooed and King Steve snarled, soft words whispered through choking sobs and whip wild yelling.

He looks Eddie straight on at one point, his face open with concern, but all he sees is an angry, sobbing, red-faced, wet-faced little Eddie talking with Steve, "You think I'm...I'm a dirty queer? Why would you say that to me? No...no, Steve, keep your voice down, keep your voice"—and then, quieter, a whisper—"I thought I could trust you. I know I like boys, but that was a secret. You're an asshole, Steve. Go fuck yourself."

And when he blinks again, Eddie's concerned face staring back at him, all Steve does is cough and cough and cough. Eventually, he's hunched tight into himself and spitting directly into Eddie's palm. Out comes a fully formed black rose.

A bud that hadn't bloomed, that hadn't been removed. Sharp thorns and wet petals and an eye that swirls and swirls and swirls.

It all comes back to him, then, staring at that flower, floundering backwards, catching Eddie's eyes in a daze.

It all comes back to him.

How much he's always loved Eddie Munson.

Anyway, just like, a hanahaki surgery gone wrong, I guess. Like they all think it works until, y'know, it doesn't. They get close again and it floods back in. The very thing he tried to get away from.

I imagine that after Steve coughs up that fully formed rose, Eddie squishes it in his palm. The thorns cutting up his hand, the petals crushed between his fingers. And then he just...eats it. Like fully puts it on his tongue, chews it up between his teeth, and swallows the whole damn thing—yes, even the thorns. There's blood in his mouth, petals between his teeth, blood and drool on his hand.

And he lunges forward to grab Steve's face, to kiss him so roughly they could be devouring each other. And all they taste in each other are the bittersweet ghosts of black rose petals and the metallic harshness of one another's blood; Steve had hacked up blood, too, from the thorns cutting his throat.

And when they separate?

"You were the first boy I ever fell in love with," Eddie confesses, "you're the only boy I've ever loved. There's been nobody else in that place, Steve. Only you, after everything, have remained."

Okay. Now I'm done. I promise I'm done rambling. Would this be interesting as a fic? I don't know. It's fine.

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.