he's got great boundaries

st sideblog // main @okaynowkiss // 30s, she/her

[aclockmaker]

my steve/eddie fic

on tumblr:

actors au ficlets part 1 part 2

established relaysh argument short fic

on ao3:

girl/girl pwp (current WIP is a somewhat less pwp sequel to this... i mean there is still porn in it tho)

drug dealer au

christmas fic

[grimweathers]

the sinner's guide to heaven by @postmodernau, for @steddiebbang

"What do you want to know?" Steve stood up straight and squared his shoulders, ignored the way the angle of the sun turned Eddie's brown eyes honey gold. Eddie answered immediately, like he'd had the question at the ready. "When was the last time you kissed somebody?"

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: @laundrybiscuits! laundrybiscuits has 13 fics posted to AO3 in the stranger things fandom and all of them are in the Steddie tag.

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by laundrybiscuits:

come alive in the neon light

wait for the season to come back to me

purify our misfit ways

young man (what do you wanna be)

waiting all night for a bite

"Laundrybiscuits is one of those authors who's been steadily contributing short, sweet, character-driven stories since the ship became popular in 2022. I really love the internal voices their characters have, and there's often a lot of wry, delightful humor in their writing. They're not afraid to poke fun at tropes or explore common fic themes with a new lens, and there are plenty of satisfying character interactions outside of the main two." -- anonymous

Below the cut, @laundrybiscuits answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

Mostly their complementary character growth! The way I like to see it is: bravery for Steve means making an active choice to change, whereas bravery for Eddie means digging in and committing. Steve’s overall arc is all about learning to question conformity and to choose values/relationships over comfort/inertia, while Eddie’s mini-arc is all about sticking it out and “not running” (although canon took that a wee bit too literally for my taste…). Both Steve and Eddie have complicated relationships to adulthood, masculinity, and individuality. They both oscillate between subverting and leaning into their respective stereotypes, and they both struggle with lack of social validation and kinship ties. I think they have the potential to truly understand each other—and I think that the process of understanding each other would change them in very interesting ways, especially because canon takes place at such an elastic time in their lives. Plus, I think it's such a satisfying progression of Steve's character arc in particular. His relationships with Nancy and Robin were canonically catalysts for increasingly large shifts in his self-image, and it just fits the pattern SO well to let his relationship with Eddie catalyze one more shift.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Pining for SURE. I think writing, as a medium, is uniquely well-positioned to depict emotional constipation because it has such a tight control over the reader’s linear experience. And I think that’s neat!

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

I know this sounds like a dodge, but I always have the most fun when I unpick tropes and push at them a little. I definitely enjoy READING the same tropes over and over again, but when it comes to writing, I very quickly run out of steam if there’s not a specific thing I’m trying to do. I have no writerly stamina, grit, or determination, and will instantly abandon whatever I’m currently playing with in favor of the nearest shiny thing. 

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Oof, what a tough question! Some selected faves that, in the spirit of this whole thing, I think may have been slightly under-hyped: heavy melodies, by okaynowkiss/@aclockmaker - This (and its sequel) might just be my favorite take on f/f Steddie among many excellent takes, and this particular fic has definitely influenced my own characterizations! It’s heaps of fun in a compellingly awkward way, which is absolutely my jam. Come Down Now by @andwhatyousaid - I find that my experience of outsider POV can be very hit or miss, because it’s not always clear how the POV serves the narrative. This particular writer tends to be pretty thoughtful about technique, and that comes through beautifully here! The voice and limited perspective really, really work for me in this one. Friday Night Drinks by peachandlove - This is a newer one that I think has been criminally overlooked! At the time I’m writing this, a few months after publication date, it has <100 hits which is WILD to me. The structure and voice are absolutely perfect for the scope; it’s a single moment built out in layers of history and context, with just enough detail to give it depth without being too heavy-handed about it. 

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time loops—there are so many great time loop/time travel fics in this fandom that I’ve never felt all that inspired to make my own, but I’ve actually started wondering what an interactive time loop fic might look like. I think it might be a fun if perhaps overly ambitious project to noodle at in Twine, especially once S5 comes out and there’s a little more canon timeline to fuck up. 

What is your writing process like?

I do a fair bit of (nonfiction) writing for my job, and I very deliberately do not have any kind of formal writing practice in fandom, because I don’t want this to feel like work.  Basically, I write because there’s something specific I want to do; there are a lot of half-formed paragraphs in my ST scratchpad file (currently over 100k words of fic fragments, deleted scenes, commentary, meta, etc.) that are just me playing with various ideas. I sometimes go back to them and build them out into a ficlet, which I post on tumblr if it’s reasonably self-contained. If that hasn’t scratched the particular itch, I might write a continuation. Sometimes I then get an idea for the ending, and I have to figure out how to write my way there.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I’m sure I have a bunch that I’m not aware of, but I do try to be especially conscious about “fandom accent” stuff. For instance, I have a tendency to say “X and Y and Z” rather than “X, Y, and Z.” I also tend to say “the X of [possessive pronoun]” e.g. “the warmth of her” instead of “her warmth,” and I’m like 80% sure I picked both of those up in some fandom or other. Of course those aren’t inherently bad or anything, but I try to be aware of how often they pop up so they don’t become distracting.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

If I’m writing at a brisker pace, I prefer posting chunks whenever they get finished! If I’m in a less fecund writing phase, I’ll tend to hold off until I’m almost done with the whole piece because I’m more likely to want to go back and make structural revisions when it takes more time to cook. Regardless, I’ve found that deadlines and schedules really mess with my ability to enjoy fandom as a hobby, which is why I don’t usually participate in fandom events nowadays. I’ve done a few exchanges and Big Bangs in the past, albeit always from the artist side, and it’s just way too stressful for me! I recently tried giving myself a posting deadline to drag young man across the finish line, and I blew right past my self-imposed deadline and two extensions to that deadline, also self-imposed. So…my limitations remain unaltered!

Which fic are you most proud of?

You know, in the context of ST, I think I’m the most proud of one of my least popular fics: grace coming out of the void. It’s not perfect, but I felt like I mostly accomplished what I set out to do with that one. However, I also recognize that it’s a tough sell, because what I wanted to accomplish was a restless, tense kind of anomie. Not exactly playing the hits, there! But hey, if you’re the kind of person who might enjoy reading a short story about small-town suburban suffocation and falling into quietly self-destructive patterns, maybe give it a whirl. It’s got a happy ending, I promise.

How did you get the idea for young man (what do you wanna be)?

Mostly I scooped up a bunch of miscellaneous jokes from my scratch file and cobbled them together into a loose semblance of a narrative! I also felt like I hadn’t explored either Jonathan or Argyle’s voices, characters, or comedic potential. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I feel like Eddie and Argyle would either instantly become cosmic soulmates or be completely and entirely baffled by each other, no middle ground. Obviously I went with the former on this fic, because I thought it was funnier. 90% of the decisions I have made about this fic have been based on what I found funniest at the time.  The remaining 10% has been about gently prodding at the concept of queer mentorship. I’ve seen a pattern in many different types of narrative—not just fanfiction—where the mentor/mentee divide is highly structured, binary, and imbued with a certain implicit one-way authority. I don’t think that reflects how real life works, especially not in queer communities! So I wanted to write Eddie handling the concept of mentorship while still being young and messy himself, navigating various people’s different relationships to queerness and identity even as his own identity is still highly plastic.

When writing purify our misfit ways, what was something you didn’t expect?

Honestly, I hadn’t expected to write a Steve POV chapter at all—I primarily wrote that fic to explore a hypothetical pre-S3 Robin & Eddie friendship, so although I knew Steve would be involved in the story, I really thought I’d just bounce back and forth between Robin and Eddie for the entire fic. I’d been keeping some notes on Steve’s perspective throughout the fic, trying to build out his internal landscape and figure out how he might react to events in this universe. It ended up leading me down some unexpected behavioral choices that demanded explanation! However, I’d been writing both Robin and Eddie with very similar blind spots, and Steve certainly wasn’t about to sit them down with a well-articulated, self-reflective explanation of what was going on in his head.  I probably could have made it work if I’d stretched out the plot a little more and really focused on conveying Steve’s state of mind secondhand, but it was infinitely easier just to tag him in. Also, as much as I complain about how tough his voice is for me to write, it’s always a bit of a relief to switch it up from the significantly more high-key and verbose Robin-&-Eddie show.

What inspired waiting all night for a bite?

Vampire!Eddie is an incredibly popular fandom trope, and I’ve never encountered a trope in my life without wanting to turn it inside out and give it a good shake. Contrast is very entertaining to me, so I wanted to write something around the image of Steve being the absolute worst vampire of all time—at least according to Eddie. Because we do see hints in canon of Eddie wanting things to be exactly correct all the time! Not “correct” by society’s standards, of course, but he has his own standards that he can be a bit rigid and inflexible about. Personally, I like to bring that out and link it to a fraught relationship with control when I characterize Eddie; he’s a Forever DM who runs pre-written modules, he learns highly technical songs, and he is generally very much not in control of his environment/situation outside his chosen domains. That’s a fun tension to explore.

What was your favorite part to write from wait for the season to come back to me?

I loved writing the first (mini-)chapter, because it helped me articulate a lot of ideas and angles that I’d been mulling over in the context of how Eddie’s death might impact Steve in the longer term. In some ways, it’s a blatant summary of the fic’s core themes; the rest is mostly just iterating through those ideas. If it weren’t for my compulsive need to have a happy/hopeful ending, I think it actually could’ve stood alone.

How do/did you feel writing come alive in the neon light?

That was the first ST fic I wrote where I really felt like I was getting a handle on the character voices, and even then, it took a chapter or so to really start gelling. This fic was born from a document literally titled “Steve POV” that was created solely to explore Steve’s voice and perspective, because I did not feel like I understood him. It was a ton of fun, though! I’m aware that one of my favorite terrible jokes in that fic (about Olive Garden) is a bit anachronistic and clunky, but I liked it enough to leave it in anyway, because those are my priorities.

What was the most difficult part of writing wait for the season to come back to me?

Overall, it was quite a difficult fic to get out. Sometimes I do wish I’d spent more time studying creative writing from a craft perspective, because I’m pretty new to fiction writing overall; I’ve been in fandom for more than two decades, but I’ve primarily been a fanartist/graphic-maker in the past, with the very occasional foray into writing games (a thing that used to exist on fan forums and LJ). This is genuinely the first fandom I’ve posted more than a couple thousand words for.  I came up against the limits of my ability with wait for the season, I think. I did start writing a companion/expansion piece (unfortunately stalled in my WIP graveyard, from which reanimation is possible but unlikely), which I think is tonally closer to what I’d originally had in mind. Turns out it’s actually a lot of work to write like that, even when you’re the kind of person who says things like “the limits of my ability” in casual conversation! On a more specific note: I really struggled with sending Steve to therapy. Not to get overly personal here, but I've been in and out of therapy for a couple decades now, and it's been a decidedly mixed bag. I'm still doing it, because the alternatives are worse, but I really don't like pretending that it's easy, safe, or painless.  I think I'm okay with where I landed in this fic, but I was originally planning for the companion fic to give Eddie a much worse experience with therapy and the healthcare system in general. In my experience, the more unusual your backstory is, the more work you have to do in order to get anything out of therapy, and the more strategic you have to be about prioritizing cultural competencies. That's not something I've ever really seen represented in fiction! Maybe someday I'll find the right story to explore it more. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Weirdly, I am quite fond of “It’s not the kind of love that means he wants anything other than what they have, even if it is, like, 2% romantic. He thinks maybe it’s like 2% milk, how it’s nice just to have a little bit mixed in and not reach for more,” from come alive in the neon light. That’s not a simile that makes sense! It adds nothing, semantically! And yet…that’s the point at which the way I write Steve’s voice kind of clicked for me, because it doesn’t make sense in such a specific way. So, so many things he says in his internal narration do not hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever. I always love reading/writing stories where the narration is Not Thinking About Something very loudly, and Steve is an absolute treasure in that respect. 

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Well, the next thing I post will almost certainly be the conclusion to young man…but I don't know that I want to promote it per se, because I have no idea when I'll have it up. (I am making an educated guess that it will not be up by the time this Q&A gets posted.) To be honest, I started a fairly stressful job a couple years ago, and my fandom activities—which weren’t super intense to begin with—have slowed down considerably.  I’m certainly not done with this fandom. I think I have at least one or two more ST stories left in me, and I’m pretty sure that S5 will spark some inspiration no matter how it goes. Ultimately, though, I’m not in a rush! I firmly believe that you can always come back to a fandom, no matter how much time has passed. My fannish interests never really die; they might just hibernate for a little while.

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

I have to admit, I don’t think of myself as an underdog/under-exposed writer! I feel like my fics have reached most of the people who might get something out of them, or at least that they’re reasonably findable. If I were trying to “maximize engagement,” I would be doing things in a way that I very deliberately and purposely am not! This is an incredibly low-stakes hobby to me, and I would like to keep it that way.  That said, I am perpetually and unspeakably grateful to everyone who’s read and/or commented on my work. I’m not always the best at responding, but it truly means the world to me; it’s the whole reason I’m here, really. I’m indebted to everyone else who has ever chosen to share their fic, art, meta, etc., and I hope my own work can spark a fraction of the joy and satisfaction I’ve received through my years in fandom. 

Thank you to our author, @laundrybiscuits, and our nominator! See more of laundrybiscuits's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[andwhatyousaid]

wip friday

tagged by the homie @carbonbased000 for w(th)ursday to post a snippet of a WIP.

tagging anyone working on anything that sees this :) (yes, even you!)

so, has anyone seen the movie shelter (2007) and do you remember when i said i wouldn't write an AU for it.

Eddie's got the radio switched on (always, never off) anyway, but when Steve turns in the passenger seat and asks, "So, how have you been, man? I haven't seen you since graduation," he might as well be saying each word individually into a megaphone. Eddie reflectively checks the rear view mirror again, but the kids aren't paying them any mind. "Ah, nothing, you know? Same old shit. What—uh—what about you?" His voice comes out shaky. Trembling. He hates it and clears his throat to rid it, then straightens his arm against the steering wheel, his palm pressed flat to it, squaring his shoulders back into the seat. "Just in town for a little while," Steve says. "My parents needed someone to water their plants." He shoots Eddie a smile—real charming like he must do in his business meetings to seal the deal or whatever. "It's kind of nice having the house to myself. Get to clear my head."

[carbonbased000]

WIP weekend

Yay weekend! Thank you so much @onirislanding for the tag <3

Let's see if I can start working on some Steddie wips again. Hit me with an emoji and I'll write and share 3-5 sentences or more from that fic :)

Your options, should you wish to make me write:

💌 Untitled sequel to baby what's the scene aka personal ads AU aka Eddie being an idiot in the aftermath

💐 E ti vengo a cercare aka 90s Italy AU

🐍 Ouroboros (title tbc) aka jaded rockstar Eddie in his 40s mysteriously disappears

[carbonbased000]

For @shark-myths who requested 💐:

They try to do the sightseeing touristy thing in Rome. Still jet-lagged as fuck, they get on a bus, then another bus, even slower than the first, and eventually get to Villa Borghese. The park is so beautiful that Eddie experiences a short reprieve from the little voice inside his head that's been repeating on a loop, This is the worst idea you've ever head, yes even worse than that time you— insert here one of the numberless times in which Eddie did something epically idiotic.

[carbonbased000]

@grimweathers and @strangermoons requested 💌. Thank you! Okay so. I did write a couple of sentences to what I had started writing many moons ago, and then immediately realized that this part doesn't really work because the fic needs to start at a different moment. So I'm cheating, sorry, this is now a (v much rated E btw) deleted scene and I'm setting it free:

There’s this image that got imprinted into Child Eddie’s mind, from Wayne’s 1982 kitchen calendar illustrated with the lives of the saints: a nun going through rapture, the halo of light behind her head, an expression on her face that Older Eddie would learn to associate first with drugs and then—rarely—sex. Of a certain type. This wasn’t the intention of whoever made the calendar, he’s pretty positive. But then again, who the hell knew what went through the mind of those people, when Miss July was a lady holding her cut-off tits on a nice serving plate, and Miss October was swinging her eyes on a string from her fingers like a pair of fuzzy dice?

So, not to be dramatic, but Eddie’s pretty sure the closest he’ll ever get to rapture is this exact moment: Steve’s pupils dilating until the black eats up all that pretty hazel, his jaw dropping as Eddie begins fucking his mouth.

He starts slow, and Steve's long lashes flutter as his eyelids get heavier and heavier, until he looks drunk. He gives him a little more, and Steve moans desperately as if he were the one getting the best head of his life—but it's Eddie pushing inside his hot, wet, perfect mouth. Steve's eyes roll back like in a trance—but it's Eddie who has one foot in heaven and one in the sweetest ring of hellfire.

And then Steve's whole body goes pliant under Eddie’s weight, his pretty eyes filling with tears and total fucking trust, and Eddie loses it. It takes the very last shreds of his control to slide out of Steve’s mouth and jerk off on his lips and on his tongue so as not to choke him for real, so as not to hurt him for real. He pushes back in to feed him the rest of his very undivine ecstasy because Steve asked for it before; he’s only asked for one thing, and there is no way Eddie is not giving it to him.

[carbonbased000]

And finally for @andwhatyousaid and @stevehairingtit who requested some snakey. Thank you! Here you go, fresh from the ellipsus doc (warning for MCD but not really):

The wake is half-reception, half-tribute concert. People take turns on the stage and play acoustic covers of Corroded Coffin songs on piano and guitar. Steve only recognizes a couple of them, but he supposes everyone playing must be some degree of famous. Steve hasn't kept up with this or any other musical scene, really. Unless he counts buying every CC album as soon as it came out.

In the reception hall, he gets a glass of white wine from the circulating waiter and searches the crowd for familiar faces. Well, for the faces of the three people he actually knows here. Eventually he spots Jeff, and watches him get swarmed and swallowed by a small mob before Steve can reach him. This is supposed to be for friends and family only, but clearly some fans have managed to sneak in.

Steve goes back into the theater and listens to a few weirdly quiet songs, and drinks his wine, and then thinks, Eddie would have fucking hated this, and that's when he breaks down.

[andwhatyousaid]

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

steddie, 37k+, very much about post-S4.

Steve and Eddie narrowly escape death. A year later, they reconnect. Steve knows they all talk to Eddie; it’s no surprise. He’s just waiting for it to stop feeling like he’s triggered a tripwire whenever he stumbles across Eddie’s name in conversation.

[postmodernau]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler, The Party (Stranger Things), Wayne Munson Additional Tags: Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Season/Series 04, Temporary Character Death, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ghosts, haunted houses in the gothic sense Summary:

When he came home from walking the dog, Steve found the letter. As he picked it up he realized that he had been waiting for this moment without even knowing it, that he too was just a dog that didn’t know he had strayed too far until he felt the tug of a leash at his neck.

The letter contained many words, but the message boiled down to just two: Come home.

(Steve left Hawkins, and then he came back. There was a haunted house waiting for him with too many memories, and a ghost with not enough.)

[anniebass]

winter/summer, trad drawings of my little blorbos

(you can snatch the tiny drawing originals at my ko-fi 😇 with free shipping!)

[grimweathers]

scoping out cuties at scoops

[rogue-alien]

Not pictured: Robin in the passenger seat with a huge map getting Nancy extremely lost

[missmariannecherie]

So many Stobin-besties vibes… 🥹

Also:

I love them! Almost as much as I love Robin and Steve.

[djotime]

my favorite genre: jkeery kissy lips

[paradimeshifts7]

Happy spooky month, everyone!! 🎃👻🦇

[grimweathers]

(please click and enlarge for better quality 😭)

(animated version also here; the file is too big to embed onto tumblr unfortunately)

FIC: Idle Hands (With Time To Kill)

COMPLETELY over the moon that i got to work with the incredible @teddywesworl for the @steddiebang2024 this year!! such a talented author, and an absolutely lovely person to work with!! as i've been telling her this whole time, i am so, so psyched for everyone to be able to read this fic!

[getlost0p]

They're silly

[dilfgifs]

David Harbour as Jim Hopper Stranger Things season one, dir. Duffer brothers

[leramuzyka]

Eddie Munson