#I'm trying to meld setting-typical tropes & supernatural elements into a plot that vibes with s3

[finxwrites]

So I saw some cool fanart and got a craving for an Age of Sail au of Stranger Things, but I kept tripping up on how a proper fancy naval ship has like a hundred guys at least. I do not want a hundred guys. That is way too many guys. Half the point of this show is the secrecy, the “no one would believe me if I told them,” the us-against-the-world isolation that’s inherent to all of its genres.

There are two solutions to this problem. One is to shrug and ignore it, focusing only on the main characters and treating the rest as a faceless crowd with conveniently uniform opinions. This is the standard for writing these stories anyway, so it’s not like it’s even cheating really.

The other is to just…leave the guys behind. At the bottom of the sea. Sorry, guys.

Hopper was a captain of the Royal Navy, on track to be an admiral someday, but that was then. These days he captains a merchantman with a skeleton crew, because despite everything he couldn’t quite let go of the sea. He never takes his eyes off the horizon. That’s not quite the same as never looking back, but it’s the best he’s got.

His crew is the folks he works with in canon. This means they’re going to be apprised of the horrors before we’re done, unlike in canon, but I’m okay with that.

He knows Joyce Byers from the old days, when they were both kids going wild together, and even after he got himself a position as a midshipman, whenever he came into port they’d spend a night going wild together again, for old times’ sake. They remember this fondly, but they haven’t spoken in years – they saw each other once in the time after Lonnie left, and only once.

Hopper takes on passengers sometimes, to make up profits when margins are slim. This time he takes on Joyce and Jonathan, who are traveling to the Americas for a fresh start; and Nancy Wheeler and her companion/lady’s maid Barb, who are going to visit an aunt in the Caribbean. Will and Mike have been friends for years, even before the two of them took service on the same ship a year ago, so Joyce has promised to look after Nancy on her trip.

Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are midshipmen in the royal navy, all serving on the same ship. Someone’s parents are landed gentry, maybe with a seat in the House of Lords or something, so some strings are pulled to get that ship to escort Hopper’s, or to get Hopper’s ship into the convoy that the boys’ ship is guarding, or however that works. I have not done research :P We’re going to call the boys’ ship the HMS Middlefast, because they’re. um. in middle school. Look I didn’t think too hard about this and neither should you. The Hawkins was already taken, that’s Hopper’s ship.

Also serving on the Middlefast: Steve! He’s a lieutenant, aka one rank below the captain, even though he’s like nineteen and has barely been at sea a full year. (His dad 100% bought his rank.) He starts courting Nancy almost as soon as he lays eyes on her.

Tommy’s also on the Middlefast, because we need him there as a set piece for Steve’s character arc. Unfortunately this means Tommy will not survive this story. Sorry, Tommy.

In my defense there’s no evidence he survived in canon either. It’s not like we ever see him again after his fight with Steve! For all we know he and Carol got eaten in the woods while Steve was cleaning off that marquee.

You know who else is on the Middlefast? A snappish midshipman called Max who keeps to himself and doesn’t seem to want to be friends with anyone. Dustin and Lucas think he’s really cool and spend a lot of time trying to befriend him whenever Will is hanging out with his family on the Hawkins. (Mike does not think Max is cool, he insists, he thinks Max is annoying. The feeling is mutual. They’ll get over it eventually, but not before they almost die a lot.)

We’re going to just smush seasons 1 and 2 together, because I’m the boss and I say so. (Also bc s2 is kind of about Things Festering, and being unable to move on, and PTSD, and that just doesn’t jive for this au. We’re not going to hold still long enough for anything to fester, this is just one really long, really cursed voyage.)

So that’s how things stand for a while. Steve and Will take every excuse they can to get assigned duties on the Hawkins, and after a while the captain of the Middlefast just gives up and makes Steve & the boys the default option for whenever someone needs to go stand watch there or whatever. 

Will hangs out with Jonathan and his mom a lot, and spends the rest of his time playing silly games with his friends. (They should be standing watch, yes, and they do, but also they’re twelve, they goof off a lot. The only people on the Hawkins who ever berate them for it are Hopper and Steve, and Steve’s busy wooing Nancy while Hopper does not actually care that much, so it’s not like they have that big an incentive to stop.)

Steve and Nancy are dancing around each other as she puts up the protest she knows she’s supposed to, while Barb is increasingly done with her nonsense but does her best to be supportive.

The night everything changes, two terrible things occur.

Nancy finally lets Steve into her bed. This is not one of the terrible things, although Nancy will think of it as one for some time to come. It will be a while before she can untangle her guilt from that which she does not actually regret.

Barb decides that there are certain things she doesn’t want to overhear her best friend doing and goes for a walk along the deck. It’s a clouded night, not even stars to keep her company, but she leans on the railing and gazes out into the blackness anyway.

Will is on watch that night. Jonathan usually keeps him company when he’s on watch alone, but he’s been trying to learn all he can about navigation from Hopper’s pilot, both because he believes in picking up useful skills when he can and because if he helps with the calculations the pilot will slip him a bit of money for it. It’s not a salary, it’s not reliable, but it’s extra cash and he knows how deeply his mom dipped into their funds for this gamble on a new life. So Jonathan is too tired to stay up all night with Will. Will sends him off to bed with a laugh and a roll of his eyes—“I’ll be fine, Jonathan, oh my god, I’m not a baby, I’m not going to die of boredom without you.” 

This is not one of the terrible things either, but Jonathan will think of it as one for the rest of his life.

The first terrible thing happens with no witness but one: a good man dies. He dies helping a frightened little girl, who sees his death and flees faster and further than those chasing her had thought possible. She weeps as she runs. Her salt tears drip into the salt waves beneath her feet.

The second terrible thing appears as a glimmer of moonlight on the black waves. The glimmer spreads, slow and viscous as molasses, and brightens as it does. And yet the moon is still hidden behind thick clouds.

The light spreads upward, illuminating the rotted hull of an old, old ship. The ship itself seems to glow in the false moonlight. The light spreads further: the deck, the quarterdeck, the poop deck, the forecastle, all bare of any souls, living or otherwise. A broken bowsprit over a figurehead so encrusted in barnacles it’s impossible to make out what it was once meant to be. Three masts in full square rigging, the sails billowing taut before the wind despite the huge ragged holes torn through the fabric. 

A ghost ship, hollow with haunting. And it sails straight for the Hawkins.

It sails through the Hawkins.

It does not leave empty.

Nancy wakes in the dark before morning. (Steve does not.) She goes outside. She’s not looking for Barb; she hasn’t thought of Barb once that night, with a casual selfishness she has not yet outgrown. But she finds Barb’s shawl, soaked through with seawater, caught on the deck railing. It’s glowing like the still-absent moon. 

The glow disappears in the first weak light of dawn. It does not return. No one believes her the next morning when she insists it was real.

And so, the aftermath. 

In this story, Nancy and Joyce are united in their insistence that something happened. In this story, there is no obvious explanation for the disappearances: yes, they fell overboard, so tragic, it happens, but why both of them? On a calm sea? There’s something wrong here. Neither captain wants to admit it, but they both know it to be true. 

In this story, the boys are convinced Will is hiding somewhere. They know him: they know he’s careful and sensible and has been at sea over a year, and wouldn’t just fall overboard like an idiot. They know he’s dutiful when they’re not dragging him away with games, and wouldn’t leave his post unless he saw something. They think he witnessed something awful—a crime, a murder, maybe Barb’s murder!—and he’s hiding from a scurrilous villain. They steal through every nook and cranny of both ships looking for him. 

They find a girl instead. She is terribly afraid. When they decide they have to tell their captain about her, a huge wave crashes through the nearest porthole and blocks their passage.

They’re far above the waterline. There’s no way for a wave to reach them so high. They all rush to the porthole to confirm it, and then bicker amongst themselves about what’s going on.

It takes another wave before they realize it’s El.

In this story, Joyce dreams of her missing son. She dreams of him at the stern of a ghost ship, reaching for her. She wakes at the railing of the Hawkins, reaching back, about to step overboard into the waves.

It’s Hopper who grabs her before she can go over the side. He turns her around to shake her, demand answers, and his words die in his throat.

Her eyes are glowing. They’re filled with eerie light from end to end. Like phosphorescence. Like moonlight.

She blinks awake. The light vanishes. She registers where she is, who’s holding her, and the grief-worn lines on her face harden with determination. “He’s alive,” she swears. “He’s alive, Hop, I know he is.”

This time, he believes her.

Some plot stuff happens. Honestly I’m not too fussed about pinning it down just now; I’d rather leave some wiggle room in case I ever actually write any of this. Here’s the gist + some essential bits:

We’re going to lean hard on the fantasy elements. The whole point of an Age of Sail au is to change the aesthetic, after all, and this story’s aesthetic includes ghost ships and hungry mermaids and ancient curses.

El can walk on water. She can command the waves to some extent. If she strains herself, she can summon a storm. She’s a child of the sea; when she begs the sea for aid, the sea heeds her.

She can find the ghost ship, too. At some point she’ll point them toward it and they’ll sail to its home port. 

Its home port is an island found on no map, because it’s actually a massive sea turtle whose shell is overgrown with greenery. It’s where El grew up, raised—no, more like kept—by a witch (Brenner) who can command the creatures and spirits of the sea. Of which she is one.

I really want to have Brenner work for the East India Trading Company. They’re just such good villains for the setting! Plus the way they operate semi-autonomously, not really answering to any government and without a hugely centralized hierarchy, gives them room for a top-secret laboratory magic island full of experimental sorcery.

But I also like the vibe of a mad witch alone with his monsters, and after all half the fun of an au is changing things around. I don’t need to give the man a laboratory and official funding.

Decisions, decisions…

Anyway, Brenner sent the ghost ship to find El. She managed to hide herself from it, so it scooped up the closest people it found: a kid about her size and shape, and a girl who was acutely alone. (Ghost ships have some rather unusual criteria for what makes two people similar.)

Nancy’s going to go on an expedition onto the turtle island to find Barb and blow shit up. This fic, should it ever exist, will be called Cherry Bomb. Possibly Jonathan (and maybe Steve!) will come along, but the story is hers. She deserves to blow shit up.

Maybe she even gets to Barb in time to save her. Or maybe she doesn’t, but Barb isn’t entirely lost—she might be a ghost, bound to a locket that Nancy wears ever after round her neck; she might have been transformed into a siren, or a selkie, or some stranger creature; she might be cursed with an enchanted sleep. Maybe Nancy gets to carry Barb with her and search for some way to save her. Maybe they both get a second chance.

Steve gets that character arc. He talks shit to Jonathan, gets punched in the face, rows over to the Hawkins on a dinghy to apologize, and then gets caught up in the sudden escalation of plot and is onboard when everyone goes to the turtle island.

The HMS Middlefast sinks. Probably when a kraken eats it. Sorry, Middlefast. Our main cast is conveniently on the Hawkins when it happens.

Possibly the captain of the Middlefast decided that the sensible thing to do when faced with a witch who commands the dark powers of the sea is to arrest him. So now there’s a witch in the brig, laughing at them, and, well, it goes about as you’d expect.

At some point it comes out that Max is a girl who disguised herself as a boy to run away from home and have adventures. Not sure how she became a midshipman, since her family definitely didn’t buy her commission; possibly she started as a ship’s boy and earned the rank for valor in combat.

Possibly she gets tossed in the brig or something and the boys bust her out and smuggle her onto the Hawkins. None of the adults over there really care about the impropriety, they’re too busy dealing with ghosts.

Kali is also a daughter of the sea. A siren, maybe, who beguiles with her song. Or maybe she’s something totally unique, like El—perhaps she commands the winds as El commands the waves, and she and her tiny crew of pirates always have fair skies and a strong tailwind. 

As in canon, she invites El to join her. She promises freedom, agency, and the chance to know herself truly and fully. (If we go with Brenner working for the East India Trading Company, she can promise vengeance, too.)

As in canon, El declines, and chooses instead to go back and save her friends. Possibly from that kraken.

This fic is called A Room Where the Light Won’t Find Us. It’s about finding a place you belong; it’s about hiding, and choosing not to hide anymore despite the risks; it’s about fear, and family, and the struggle between being a wild, glorious, unfettered thing and binding yourself to others through love.

Will gets possessed for a bit. Sorry, Will. Maybe the ghost ship anchors itself in his ribs and keeps trying to steal him away again. Maybe he slowly becomes a siren, eaten away from within until there’s nothing but a coyly smiling monster that wants to draw you in and drown you. Maybe it’s a leviathan of the deep, long buried in slumber, and Brenner planted some seed in Will that’s calling to that creature so that it slowly wakes.

At the end Brenner gets eaten by a kraken, El manages to excise the evil thing from Will, Nancy blows some shit up and maybe sort-of rescues Barb, Joyce gets her son back, they all live happily ever after. (Except for everyone who’s now at the bottom of the sea in the wreck of the Middlefast. Sorry, everyone.) We sail along peacefully for a while, perhaps make it all the way to the Caribbean, and then—ACT TWO!