Ghost

GhostInTheClawMachine on AO3. Any pronouns. Writing Stranger Things and Baldur's Gate 3, mostly, but I've embraced the multifandom life and I can't even begin to predict what's gonna show up here.

[chainofclovers]

Put in the tags the completely finished (whether cancelled or wrapped up on its own terms) TV series that has YOUR perfect ending, however you define that

Please don’t include huge spoilers for the specifics of the endings, and it would also make me happy if people don’t use this to talk about the shows whose endings they hated

[dragonologist-phd]

the thing about heavy handed symbolism is that sometimes. it's fun.

[trying-trying2lyk]

i love writing out numbers and then putting them in parentheses like "one (1)" even when i dont need to i think its funny

[help-me-writes]

Project Announcement: DEMOLITION | team #50

art by @digrupert betaing by @ghostintheclawmachine coming this fall! date to come

I'm so excited to finally announce my project for @steddiebbang 2026, and reveal the incredible team I'm going to get to work with!

DEMOLITION

Rated E est. 30-40k contemporary AU, demolition derbies, rivals to lovers, one-sided rivalry, plot with porn, a hint of Appalachian Eddie warnings for minor-moderate racism, misogyny, and homophobia; some blood and threat of serious injuries

Eddie's been driving demolition derbies since he was sixteen, and has built himself up a reputation: not just the guy with the gimmick of wrecking and rebuilding and wrecking old hearses, but a damn good driver and a great show. The Roane County Fair Hawkins Crash is his new white whale: the past two years he's won the title of Mad Dog—audience favorite, best show, craziest driver—but he's just missed first. But he just knows this is his year.

He's prepared for most everything except for the sponsor's rich, spoiled asshole of a son to be participating. (He's even less prepared for Steve Harrington to be a good driver, a great fuck, and maybe even a genuinely likeable person.)

Rivals to lovers and dirt and rust and car crashes, and not every car crash is a sex allegory, but a lot of the car crashes are a sex allegory. The sex is definitely a car crash allegory.

Excerpt:

The sun's going down and the floodlights have been turned on, turning the soft golden hour light into something harsh and stark. Despite his helmet and mouth guard, Eddie can still taste dirt and iron between his teeth from the constant clods of mud kicked up by the tires. The arena is filled with the stench of exhaust and oil and gas, burnt rubber and the ozone sharpness of metal grinding against metal.

Beneath Eddie, Corroded Coffin wheezes and gutters, the hearse on its last legs. She can't take many more hits. She struggles to turn right, and the brakes grind, and the body is dented in enough that his left elbow constantly rubs against the quilt strapped to the driver's side door as makeshift padding.

Across the arena, Harrington's Chrysler Imperial has lost all of it's polish and shine, paint ground off, scraped through, coated in mud, though the light still catches on the sheen of lingering glitter. Eddie can't see his face at this distance, cast in shadow, even staring straight down the barrel. But he can hear the engine roar.

A head-on collision is stupid. It's a good way to trash your car and knock yourself out of the running. But.

Eddie's heart pounds and his blood sings and every fiber of his body screams at him to drive his car directly into, against, through, Harrington's, until mangled metal twists together and you can't tell where one body starts and another ends.

They're the last men standing. And a head-on hit always makes for a good show.

Eddie grips the wheel and steps on the gas.

[ghostintheclawmachine]

It's that time of year again! I am once again participating in @steddiebbang and we're allowed to announce our projects!

This year, I'm doing a movie fusion/crossover based on Crossroads, the 1986 Ralph Macchio movie in which he breaks an aging musician out of a nursing home, hitchhikes down to the deep south and duels the devil’s personal guitar player. Featuring Eddie as the music student looking for a little more in life, Wayne as his uncle with a mysterious past, and Steve as one of the nurses working in Wayne's assisted living facility.

Very excited to be working with @arelliann and @ilyre-p to bring this one to life. More information on the fic below!

Rating: Mature

Estimated Word Count: 50,000-55,000 words

Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson

Characters: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Wayne Munson, Vecna/Henry Creel, Minor or Background Character(s)

Content Warnings: Health Issues Typical of an Aging Character, Period-Typical Homophobia, Minor Instances of Police Corruption and Attempted Sexual Assault, Mentions of Gun Violence

Tags: Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Movie Crossover, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Supernatural Elements, Music, Hitchhiking, Road Trip, Forced Proximity, Developing Relationship, College Student Eddie Munson, Nurse Steve Harrington, Hopeful Ending

[emeraldzephyr]

Steddie Big Bang: Project Reveal!

Incredibly excited to reveal my project for my first ever @steddiebbang

Slaying Dragons in the Dark is a hurt/comfort fix-it fic that follows Steve and Eddie as they hide away and heal in House Harrington after the events of Season 4. It's part fix-it fic, part "make these characters confront their trauma" fic, and I'm very excited to get to talk about it now!

Also so happy to have @staymagical as my wonderful artist this year. Those book binds? Divine. I also have @spectrum-spectre as my magnificent beta.

Want a preview? Check out my summary and a snippet below:

Eddie Munson died. Heart stopped, bled crimson on the ashen ground of the Upside Down until he was ripped through the bony fingers of the Reaper, gasping for breath and writhing in pain. These new friends, new acquaintances, had adopted him as one of their own, and they refused to let him go gently into that good night. But when wounds get patched, and reunions occur, how do you move on when that same hell is still threatening to burst forth around you? When nightmares of teeth and tails and terror still haunt your sleep? When half of the town thinks you're Satan himself and most of them think you're dead? When the terror whose minions you died to and who your allies failed to kill is still lurking in the dark, growing stronger every day? When you are healing alongside a man that, quite literally, snatched you from death's clutches, dragged you out of hell, and made you the best damn cup of coffee you've ever had?

1986 may not be the year Eddie graduates, but it's sure as hell going to be the year he stops running, the year he grows, the year he survives. If not for himself, then for others. Because he has a whole new network of support, and they're hauling him kicking and screaming, hiding him away in the Harrington house as he heals from wounds both physical and mental. Maybe, in the middle of all this madness, he can find time to heal his heart, too. Or maybe, he just goes insane looking at the same handful of boring rooms every day with only Steve Harrington for regular company.

"You…you're all…you," Eddie starts, sad, wet eyes glancing up at him, head still drooped, "And I…I can't even sleep without being scared. How are you not scared?"

Steve stilled for a moment, brow furrowing in thought as he contemplated Eddie's question.

"I'm not scared," Steve started, Eddie huffing out a bitter laugh before Steve continued, "I'm fucking terrified."

At Steve's admission, Eddie lifted his eyes to meet Steve's, searching for an answer in his green-brown hazel eyes, "Every time, I think it's going to be over finally, and it keeps coming back. And at this point, I feel like Penhurst would have a field day with my brain."

Eddie grinned at his admission, lopsided where the gauze and tape limited movement, before it fell from his face, looking at Steve with such sadness, "Each time it's more of the same, but also each time it's different. It always builds and builds, and you'll have some weird fucking fears."

Eddie tilts his head in confusion, brows knitting together, "You aren't doing much to reassure me there, Harrington."

"You know the Byers can't put lights on their Christmas tree anymore?" Steve asked Eddie, who shook his head no before Steve continued, "Joyce…she used them to communicate with Will when he was in the Upside Down the first year, back in '83—had 'em all over her house. I saw it when Nancy and Jonathan set a trap for one of those monsters, kids call it a demogorgon. She had some ouiji board type shit on the wall with the alphabet, and strings of lights all along the ceilings."

Steve let out a shaky breath before continuing, "They…the lights flicker when those things are nearby. When Nancy pulled a gun on me to chase me off from the Byers' house…I was standing at my open car door, about to haul ass out of there. When I looked back…it was like a strobe light was going off. I could hear Nancy and Jonathan yelling, and some awful sound. I was fucking terrified. But I couldn't…knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had just left them, you know?"

Eddie flinched at that, looking away, "Yeah, well, I did run, Harrington. After Chrissy…I fucking ran."

"The thing is…I did too," Steve rasped, voice dripping with disdain for himself, "Before Nancy could scare me off by pointing that gun at me, that thing…it dropped out of the ceiling and cornered us in Jonathan's bedroom. When it disappeared, Nancy yelled at me to leave again, telling me it was going to come back, and I fucking ran."

Steve looked up, eyes focused and piercing as he met Eddie's gaze, "Yeah, we both ran. But think about what you saw, what I saw? That's some horror movie bullshit that neither of us prepared for, that neither of us could do anything about. But after that, neither of us ran."

Eddie scoffed at that, drawing an annoyed glare from Steve, "No, you don't get to downplay yourself like that, Munson. You could have stayed in that boat when the vines dragged me through the portal, but you jumped in after us."

"Yeah, cause I was too scared to stay there alone," Eddie spat, voice filled with self-loathing.

"And when you went through the gate? Saw those bats eating me alive. You didn't run. You fought them off, alongside Robin and Nancy, with a fucking oar. And you saw what they did to me, how terrifying that place was. And when we planned to go right back in there to fight the thing that killed Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick? You were the second one through that portal."

Steve looked to Eddie, who was staring a hole through a spot on the comforter, chewing the nail on his thumb. Steve leaned into his vision, hand going to Eddie's shoulder to push him back gently, forcing him to make eye contact.

"You saved Dustin, man," Steve asserted, admiration and appreciation clear in his voice. "He told me what happened, how the bats came through the vents. They would have poured through that portal, gotten both of you. It would have blocked the rest of us from getting out. So yeah, I guess if you're being technical, you ran then. But not because of fear, but purpose."

[carys-the-ninth]

"The magic system is never fully explained" yeah that's how life works. Imagine having a story set in modern day America and the characters have several pages of exposition on combustion engines and telecommunication networks before we get to the plot

[et-in-arkadia]

i think this is absolutely correct and good writing advice but also victor hugo would like to have a word with you about the parisian sewer system circa 1832

[bendingsignpost]

victor hugo would like to have many words with you about the parisian sewer system circa 1831

[valtsv]

"you will look for themes and motifs in media that isn't worth the effort" i will look for themes and motifs in the dirt. on the ground.

[milflaralorvan-deactivated20231]

when you see your little kitty walking toward you at a leisurely pace and say "hi baby!" bc you're excited to see her and she starts trotting a little bit faster 'cause she's excited to see you too. that's what life is all about i think

[sycamorality]

op disabled reblogs but i really wanted this post on my blog again

[soymoss]

emo heron in boots

[hjbender]

The Four Discoursemen

[irvingsbailiffs]

SUPERNATURAL 1.22 — Devil's Trap

[annabelle--cane]

has anyone ever thought about what might happen if two fictional characters kissed . I just wondered if there'd been any research on this or anything

[exhuastedpigeon]

Sometimes you hear a song and a fic pops into your head full formed. This is a trap. The fic may be fully formed in your brain, but you still Have to write it down. This is an important step that most people forget about.

[kaspurrcat]

I got to collab with @arelliann on this piece for a line art exchange for the @steddiebbang while we waited for art claims to roll around. They did the linework and I did the color!

[thememedaddy]