This week, we're highlighting @stervrucht! All recs this week will be for her work, both fics and arts. @stervrucht writes, and draws for the Stranger Things Fandom for Harringrove and Steddie. We're highlighting Ster for her digital art pieces with expressive faces and dreamy, almost water-colory brush strokes, and her visceral Harringrove fics.
You should check out her ongoing fic, There's a gap where we meet for some incredibly poetic feral wet cat depictions of Billy, and check out her Ster draws st tag for her art.
She answered some questions about her work under the cut
Why Stranger Things?
I've always drifted between fandoms. I started reading Harringrove back when season 2-3 aired, left, came back and discovered Steddie, left again until I picked up writing and drawing in 2024. The ST fandom had been extremely welcoming and met many wonderful people.
What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to create for?
I love many ships and what I create for largely depends on what a story or artwork is trying to convey. Each pairing has its own vibe and I try to flow with that. I think if I had to pick just one, it would be Harringrove.
What's your typical writing process like?
Get a hot drink and a blanket and settle on the sofa. I have playlists for each fic so I put that on. I don't really plan my stories thoroughly, but I generally have some events I'm working towards. Other than that I let the characters' emotions guide me.
What's your typical drawing process like?
I seek out references, draw a crude sketch, put down rough colours, and then paint over top. I especially enjoy doing speedpaints because they force you to capture the raw essentials and embrace imperfection.
Do you have a favorite tool or brush set for your drawings?
I use Krita with its default brushes. My favourite brushes are Bristles-4 glaze and Chalk-soft
What has been your favorite project so far? Why?
Writing 'There's a Gap where we meet' has been lovely. I enjoy writing Billy's voice. It's very different from Steve or Eddie.
What has been your hardest project so far? Why?
That's probably 'The Graveyard Shift' and my Big Bang fic. There's a lot of plot and world-building. I've never tackled a project like that before.
Have you ever had a creative block? How did you get over it?
Just do something else. If I can't draw, I write and vice versa. If neither is working, I read.
Is there a big source of inspiration for you? Books? Art? Games?
I have a lot of love for Anne Rice's writing, both stylistically and thematically. Art-wise I love impressionist painters like Monet and van Gogh.
Is there an upcoming project you're particularly excited about?
I have so many things brewing and I'm equally excited about all of them.
This week, we're highlighting @jo-harrington! All recs this week will be for her work.
@jo-harrington writes for the Stranger Things Fandom, with a special focus on xOC, and xReader fics. She's also a great beta-editor and design all the graphics for her fics!
We're highlighting Jo for her incredible world building and strong OCs.
You should check out her Store Manager Verse fics for some great fluff and top-tier retail angst
Jo answered some questions about her creative process and her work under the cut
Why Stranger Things?
I’ve been an avid ST Fan since the beginning. My old Store Manager and I watched the first episode in the backroom of our store while folding t-shirts and rest was history. Fic-wise, a certain Metalhead Dungeon Master brought me out of a fanfiction posting hiatus and I haven’t looked back since.
What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to create for?
Platonic is always going to be the Hellfire Club boys. I love writing their adventures. Their friendship is epic and deserves to be explored and celebrated.
Romantic…EddiexOC or EddiexReader. I mean, I’ve been an xOC girl since my first fandom. xReader is new for me but it’s almost an extension of xOC. I always joke that I’m allowed ONE epic borbo obsession love of my life per decade and I’ll give them one canon pairing but the rest are OCs.
What's your typical writing process like?
I have an idea, I write it down, I get sick of working on a chapter, I don’t edit, I post. (Which is funny because when I beta, I am a lot more detailed. But for my own work I just need it out of my head.) It might not be the best. It could probably read better or have less typos or mistakes. But it’s always from the heart.
How do you come up with your OCs?
I sit there for a long time and figure out how I can put a part of myself into a story. Oops was I not supposed to say that? Sometimes you think of a character that you just can’t help but want to write. But even if they aren’t a manifestation of your physical self or your personality, they almost always end up being an extension of you in some ways, or something you aspire to be. You also need to add some attributes you hate into them, so that they’re not too perfect and you can throttle them around and make them suffer and not feel too bad/let it become a self hatred thing.
What has been your favorite project so far? Why?
Store Manager Verse. (EMxReader) Retail is who I am and who I’ve always been. I had a mall romance irl that went south. So it was a way to rewrite my past with my comfort character…and also give said comfort character a happy ending as well.
What has been your hardest project so far? Why?
As Above, So Below. (EMxOC) It is a passion project, it is a beast, every chapter takes an emotional toll on me and it takes a month—if not more—to recover. But it has been the single most fulfilling project that I’ve worked on in the 20 years I’ve been writing fanfiction. I've been working on it for about 2 years now. 3 more chapters til the end…I’m gonna be very sad when it’s over.
Have you ever had a creative block? How did you get over it?
My brain is just a beehive that I shake every now and again to get the bees angry. Honestly, the bigger block I get into is self-doubt. I have no problem finding the words, it’s the courage to put them to paper I struggle with at times.
Is there a big source of inspiration for you? Books? Art? Games?
Yes all of the above. But in all seriousness, life experience is the best inspiration. There’s only so much research you can do. Truly for me, the canon characters are the source of inspiration. Then I take from things I’ve done, things I’ve read, places I’ve been in order to take an idea to a fully formed plot.
Is there an upcoming project you're particularly excited about?
Eddie Munson Big Bang. I know you’re gonna hear that a lot. I love creating really ambitious AUs and I think this one is really testing my abilities as a writer. It's a crossover fic, in a way, but with a lot of original plot folded in. I hope I do both fandoms/universes justice.
Is there anything we didn't ask that you'd like to add?
I’m from the Midwest, so thank you for listening to all of my long-winded answers. Haha.
This week, we're highlighting @ihni! All recs this week will be for her work, both fics and arts. @ihni writes and makes comics for Harringrove and Metalsandwich ships. We're highlighting Ihni for her hilarious dialogues and heartfelt moments. She also puts out adorable Harringrove comics.
You should check out her Pacific Rim MetalSandwich AU for some stellar enemies-to-lovers dynamic between Steve and Billy with Eddie's sincerity and openness gluing the two of them together. And she has books of her comics available here
original image here
She answered some questions about her work under the cut
Why Stranger Things?
It's all Billy's fault, really. I mean, I liked season 1 well enough, but in a more normal-person, casual-watcher way. Then season 2 showed up and ... to be honest I didn't like Billy much at first. But then that scene with his dad happened, which explained a lot about him, and I did a 180 and adopted him as my favorite on the spot. Looked for fanfics, found fanfics, and that was that. He's been my #1 since then.
What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to create for?
Honestly, ships are less important to me than (my favorite) characters, and I usually like any situation where characters interact with each other, and I like seeing what happens. I will write and create works where Billy interacts with just about anyone, because it's interesting and fun. Romantically though? I'm a Harringrover at heart (ie Billy/Steve), but am also not opposed to Mungrove (Billy/Eddie) or Metalsandwich (Billy/Steve/Eddie). (When reading, I am not opposed to other Billy ships - as long as it's a gay ship - but I don't really create for it ... except that one Billy/Argyle fic I did, which I just remembered.) All that was a long way of saying: As long as Billy's there and somewhat of a focus (and it's not a het ship), I'm in.
What's your typical writing process like?
Lots of groaning, lots of staring at a screen, lots of checking tumblr and discord and youtube, lots of doing literally anything but writing (like sorting through the bathroom cabinet or making a piercing cradle for future bookbinding projects, etc). Sometimes, inspiration strikes and I can write a whole fic in a day or two, just to forget everything I've written immediately after posting and being surprised to re-read it a couple of weeks later. But often, it's somewhat of a struggle. Normally, I am a pretty slow writer (see abovementioned penchant for distractions), so it often takes me YEARS to finish a longer fic. But I normally don't post WIPs, so it doesn't matter that it takes me a while because no one is expecting anything from me. I recently posted my longest fic yet (first one to reach 100K, wohoo!), and that took over 6,5 years for me to finish.
What's your typical drawing process like?
Depends on what it is. If it's doodles, then a quick sketch, then lines, then erasing the sketch, and then colours (and if it's something else, well then it depends on what media it is; acrylics, pens, pencils, oils ... I like to try a bit of everything). I prefer watercolours for colouring doodles but I only have a TINY bit of black left in the watercolour set that I normally use to colour, so I'm gonna have to do something about that soon. Also I have done most of my doodles on the same kind of paper (I have like, 12 of the same kind of drawing ... pads? Book of blank papers! ... that I got at my old workplace, but I'm on my last one now so soon I'll have to switch to either a different kind of paper, or to drawing on the back of the doodles I have already done! I don't like that thought of that - I am a creature of habit that way.
Bonus: a picture of the doodles I have done that I still have (with some, I have sent them off to whoever inspired/asked for them)
Where do you get inspiration for your doodle faces?
You mean the faces on the doodles? I honestly don't know, I just want them to express some kind of emotion, and I try to convey that in the simplest forms possible. Sometimes, I succeed.
What's been your favorite project so far? Why?
Oh no, why would you ask me that? It's like asking me to choose between my children (I don't have children, but like, if I DID). I like a lot of what I've done, actually. I can't say that I've had a favorite, but if I go back and look at some old doodles or read an old fic of mine, I can feel very proud of myself and be happy that I did it that way. I also like having physical evidence that I've done something, so I have put my doodles into books and I've printed off my own fics and put them in my bookcase, and sometimes when I feel like I have done nothing with my life, I look at them and think "Actually, look at what I've done" and then I get to mentally pat myself on the shoulder and feel better.
What's been your hardest project so far? Why?
There have been some fics that have been difficult to write. Most often, it's one that is for another person, like for an exchange or something - then, I really want to make something for the recipient that they will like, but sometimes what they are asking for or their favorite things are things that don't come naturally for me to write. So then I'll have to struggle a bit. It's always harder with ideas that didn't pop up in my brain unannounced. I still try to do my best with them, though, because I want the recipient to be happy.
Is there a big source of inspiration for you? Books? Art? Games?
Well for doodles, I'd say tumblr. Many doodles have been inspired by or straight-up taken from tumblr posts. For writing, it can be anything; books, scenes from shows, movies ... I am very damaged by now, so when I watch a movie there is always a part of my brain that are going "How can we make this about Billy" or "How can we make this Harringrove". I have a long list of AUs that would 100% work for them, that will never get written by me.
Is there an upcoming project you're particularly excited about?
Not a particular one, I'd say. I have a couple of WIPs, and one fic that I'm kind of close to finishing, so I'm very much looking forward to finishing that one. I'm always excited about finishing fics and posting them, because then they are finally out of my brain - there's too much rattling in there anyway, on a good day, so anything that gets finished is cause for celebration! XD
Do you have a memorable comment or some other interaction with your work?
Many. I love comments, and I save every single one. I have a specific folder in my email inbox where I save all AO3 comments for rainy days, when I need a pick-me-up. Just in the last month or so I have been lucky enough to receive several comments that straight-up made me blush, I was so happy to read them. And while I love ALL comments (including single-sentence ones, keysmashes and emojis), I have two favorite kinds of comments:
The longer ones where someone takes the time to tell me what they liked, or theorize about the events/characters, or what something made them feel.
The ones left by someone I know; friends and people whose usernames I recognize. I don't know why, but it feels extra special when someone I know a little choose to read/look/reblog and leave a comment.
But that said, all are good. Fandom is a community, and I am 100% pro-feedback.
Is there anything we didn't ask that you'd like to add?
Just reiterating that I am pro-feedback. I try to always leave a comment or a tag on the things I see and like, because I know how happy it makes me, and there's nothing wrong with trying to spread a little happiness around in these times. If something I have made has made someone smile, then mission accomplished. We live in complicated times and some days it feels like we are bombarded by bad vibes from all sides, so fandom should be fun and simple and good vibes only. We all need a respite, sometimes. And for me, fandom is just that.
Tags: Boys In Love, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Slurs, (well one at least), Steve Harrington's King Steve Persona, but he uses it against Neil so it's okay, Fear, Lesbians to the Rescue, Steve has a right "don't you know who I am" moment and it is glorious
Summary:
Steve wakes up in bed besides his boyfriend, by loud banging on his front door.
or
Steve uses his spoiled rich-boy privileges to make Neil Hargrove leave his property.
This rec is for our Artist Highlights. Our featured artist this week is Ihni
Know a stranger things artist that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks!
Would love to nominate an artist: hearsegrrl
Rachel is one of the friendliest artists I know. She is so supportive of other artists and writers, and although she's extremely busy irl, she still makes time for fandom and always drops the most iconic works. She's incredibly humble, and deserves all the love and recognition in the world.
This week, we're highlighting @hearsegrrl as an artist!
All recs this week will be her art.
see the original here
She answered some questions about her work under the cut
Why Stranger Things?
Honestly I had never seen it before season 4, but when it dropped I started getting a bunch of Eddie edits on my TikTok and was like “WOAH, I gotta know more about that guy right now.” I binged the whole season over a couple days, fell in love with his character, remade a Tumblr account for the first time since my early teens, and started drawing him pretty much immediately.
What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to create for?
I love how much people love Steddie. I love a two himbos in love dynamic and I love their interactions in the show, even if they were brief they obviously stuck with people.
What's your typical drawing process like?
Oh jeez. Long.
Once I have an idea I’m pretty eager to start on it asap, I collect a lot of references for what I’m thinking googling model poses, random band member candids, or taking weird self timer pics of myself posing in my kitchen and then cut and paste and collage them into something close enough to what I want and then kind of draw a “skeleton” over all of that just to save a couple hours, but that process still usually takes me about 2-3 hours to get it perfect.
The piece I’m working on right now has a lot of little pieces in it and that part of the process took ten hours alone. Then I have a line drawing that I block base colors into, lock all of those, and then kind of fully render out each part at a time- skin, hair, shirt, pants, accessories, whatever else. I spend a good 75% of that process going “AHHHHH I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS WORKING,” and then somehow it all comes together in the end.
Sometimes depending on the piece, I’ve liked finding random stock images to kind of overlay in the background, it makes him feel so much more real and lifelike to me. Lately, the fully rendered stuff I’ve been posting takes anywhere from 12-20 hours of drawing. I tattoo full time 11-7 or later 5 days a week on top of drawing for appointments outside of work and usually only have time to draw for a couple hours at a time, or a little on the weekends so I try to be as efficient as possible.
Do you have a favorite tool for drawing?
I used to do a lot of painting for work and pastel pencil drawings for fun but I switched over to an iPad Pro a few years ago and it’s so much easier to be able to just draw on the couch and not drag out a bunch of materials and make a mess. I use Procreate for work and for fandom art.
Do you have any tips for drawing clothes?
Using references or making your own references to take pictures of! They’re a relief to get to because they don’t need to be perfect, unlike a face that is very anxiety inducing so don’t overthink it.
What has been your favorite project so far?
I really, really love the one I’m working on right now, I don’t know if I’ll post it (and if you’re reading this after Valentine’s Day you may have already seen it) because it’s a gift but it’s been the most fun and silly and therapeutic. But I love any “Eddie with an occupation” or AU moment, doing the baseball AU drawings for @brock-eddie was so much fun and I love how they turned out.
What has been your hardest project so far?
The Christmas Steddie one was kind of a pain in the ass because it took so long and had so many more little parts than just drawing one character, but I was happy with how it turned out. There’s a couple WIPs in my iPad that I would love to finish but they just weren’t turning out how I wanted them, I want to revisit them but I might have to scrap them and start over. Everyone is so nice I’m sure I could post them now and people would be stoked but things have to be perfect or I lay in bed at night and regret posting them for literally weeks.
Have you ever had a creative block?
Not really for coming up with ideas, but finding the energy to sit down and draw after working all day is hard sometimes. I have a weird thing where I don't want to draw for a little bit, I have to be in the headspace to work for at least 2-3 hours at a time or I just won't do it.
Is there a big source of inspiration for you? Books? Art? Games?
UGH, BEIN IN LOVE. Being a weird alt girl in Indiana. Eddie is so my type and for the first time I had a huge crush on a character that I felt like I could be his type too.
I’m a tattooer going to metal shows in my free time in 🤠Waynedale, Indiana🤠, it is so easy to picture him living in my town and going the same places I do and through art I can make him real.
There are so many talented writers on here who have brought him to life and I love and am inspired to draw by the fics that really flesh out the fact that he’s so earnest and has all these deeper feelings but he’s still a ding dong twentyish year old boy doing ding dong twentyish year old boy things. @jo-harrington's store manager verse, @wheels-of-despair's Evil Woman fics, and @courtingchaos's writings all fill me with DEEP, ACHING YEARNING for a boy like him, and no matter how sucky and unimpressive dudes in real life are, they make him so nice and funny, and I can dress him up however I want and draw him from the viewer’s perspective and there is something so therapeutic and comforting about that. I’ve been through a lot of dumb and mildly traumatizing stuff the last couple of years and reading fanfic again and drawing fanart has brought me so much peace and happiness in all of it.
What's your favorite way to get comments or interactions on your art?
I’m always really excited to finish a piece and get to post it here ASAP just to see everyone’s reactions. I’m so proud of the work that gets put into them but I’m never going to post them on a more public forum like my Instagram, I do them for myself and for the little group of people here I know it’ll bring joy to and it’s really fun to share that joy with everyone. When I’m sad, I go through the tags in the reblogs because people are so funny and sweet about them.
Is there an upcoming project you're particularly excited about?
Nothing specific right now, I’m about to get really busy with real work so I may have to slow down a little. I get a lot of ideas around the holidays/seasons changing because I love the more themed drawings, so after Valentine’s Day hopefully I’ll have some cute spring ideas to work on! I always like getting requests to see what people are wanting to see. I can’t always get to them because of work but sometimes they spark ideas for bigger projects.
Is there anything we forgot to ask?
I don’t think so! Love you all so much, for real. Time to write and draw more Eddie stomping out fascist weirdos. The world really sucks right now but everyone contributing to this fandom is creating a positive space and helping us get away from it all, I am so grateful for all of the talented people here for making life more bearable right now.
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Tags: unprepared teenage parent billy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, (the baby is not harmed though), Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, Mentions of Teen Pregnancy, Mentions of Suicide, neil's an asshole, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Slow Burn, enemies to friends to co-parents to boyfriends, Co-Parenting, steve learns about laundromats, billy deserves a bathtub, billy loves his child, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Person, Prostitution, Kid Fic, courting through cookies
Summary:
A baby.
He’s holding a baby.
There’s a baby in Billy’s hand, and Billy – seventeen years old – is suddenly a father.
This rec is for our Artist Highlights. Our featured artist this week is Ihni
Know a stranger things artist that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks!
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Tags: Billy Hargrove in the Upside Down, car crash, injuries, demodogs, democreatures, Monsters, Survival, Billy Hargrove doesn't know about the Upside Down, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 02, Not Season/Series 04 Compliant, POV Alternating, Sickness, Fever, Nightmares, made-up Upside Down creatures, made-up terms for Upside-Down creatures and features, Poisoning, Vomiting, butchering of a dead animal, Blood Drinking, Billy Hargrove - Monster killer, The Mindflayer - Freeform, off-screen skinning of an animal, Blood, desecration of a demodog corpse, Codependency, sleep-talking, Realizations, Fighting Monsters, Protective Billy Hargrove, Protective Steve Harrington, Hair Washing, Scars, Hugs
Summary:
There was a hitch. A hiccup; a rip in the veil between that place and ours. A last-ditch effort to create a lasting bridge between here and there, a last attempt from a dying world. So it blinks into existence … and then out again, like a flickering light.
Or, Billy crashes his car into the Upside Down, and gets trapped there.
This rec is for our Artist Highlights. Our featured artist this week is Ihni
Know a stranger things artist that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks!
I would love to recommend @tomtomslongdong as a *reader* highlight. It is always such a joy to see what they’re reading but also to read whatever comments and tags they leave behind. Let alone to be a writer and receive their feedback. One of the greatest supporters in the fandom, truly if no one else cares for a fic I wrote but they enjoyed it, it’s like the ultimate stamp of approval.
This week, we're highlighting @tomtomslongdong as a commenter! All recs this week will be from her recs.
Tomtom answered some questions about what she does to find fics and to leave great comments under the cut
Why Stranger Things?
I went from casual watcher in anticipation of season 4 coming out to falling in love with all the characters in the space of a few weeks. Friendship, loyalty and messy family dynamics are such a core part of st, which is something I latch onto when I’m watching anything. And maybe.. there were some characters(Eddie) that I grew even more fond of(definitely Eddie). I even remember seeing edits of Eddie at the picnic table but it wasn’t until I had watched that first episode of season 4 that I truly got it. It’s been 84 years but I’m still in love with that man.
What's your favorite ship (platonic or romantic) to read?
I read x reader the most but I adore platonic stobin and I wanna read about them more. Their dynamic is everything to me. Infact Robin with any of the st girls too. I look up this one fanart of robin and Carol Perkins a lot. A LOT.
How do you typically find fics?
At the start I would brave the tags more and I do still do that but genuinely it’s from blogs I like and follow reblogging them. I’ve curated my own little balance of people reading stuff I know I’ll like and also being introduced to fics I might not have even thought of reading before seeing their reactions.
Are there other forms of fanart you enjoy? How do you find them?
Fanart that’s been inspired by fics or concepts, just witnessing one artist inspire another is so joyful. Also when an artists self inserts themselves into their art! It’s seriously one of the coolest things ever. My favourite thing to do is trawling the tags of an eddie blog as I go on a deep dive. I scrape the barnacles off that boat allllll the way back to the start. I find all sorts of fanart and work that maybe I’ve never seen as I didn’t gravitate back to tumblr till later in summer ‘22.
What's your tip for leaving comments on works?
Just tell them how it made you feel man. Scream it at the writers. I’m no good at articulating myself at all but sometimes you read the exact thing you needed to read and all is right with the world. Let them know they’re very much to blame for your emotional state when they post. And who knows those writers might occasionally grace you with the biggest gift of all (more lore on the world they’ve built directly from their mind via an IV drip known as the DMs)
Is there any fanwork that really stood out to you?
hockey!eddie has an iron tight grip on me and if anyone could find the stats on how many times I’ve viewed dr-aculaaa and hearsegrrl art on him, you’d take my phone away
Is there anything we didn't ask that you'd like to add?
Just that it’s wild, there’s this little community in my phone that’s so smart? So talented? And I’ve formed what I hope I can call genuine friendships from this and yet no one in my day to day real life knows I’m just kicking around in here haha! I get to be my weirdo self with my weirdo friends in peace and I think that’s lovely.
