#first steddie fanart accomplished

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

I nEvEr GeT aSk GaMe StUfF

✨🦋🌿🎀💝💥💎💌

Geee, alright already! 🤣🤣🤣

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

Okay, first things first, I'm pretty satisfied with how all of my fics have been perceived so far, so I can't really complain. 

That being said: Someone who cares is doing significantly less good than Hic sunt dracones, statistics-wise. It is my own emotional support fic and incredibly close to my heart, so I really am delighted about every positive comment I get about it. 

🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

Erm, everything? Can I say everything? 🤣

I'm literally a nervous wreck after posting, anxiously hitting F5 and waiting for feedback, mind in a constant loop of self-doubt.

What if my characterization is off?

What if the premise sucks?

What if my readers don't like the direction I'm taking the story? 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! 

🌿how does creating make you feel?

So many things!!! 

For one thing, it scratches the brain itch. I’ve always had to create things, as far back as I remember. When I was a kid, my parents could stick me in a corner with some paper and scissors and crayons and glue and wouldn’t hear from me for hours. 

Even during the 15 years that I didn’t write, I always had to be doing something creative. Knitting, painting, drawing, photographing, you name it. It’s an urge that I need to fulfill and I get crabby if I can’t. 

Seeing the end results makes me feel insanely proud and accomplished. It may not be perfect, but I made that! I sunk my teeth into it and saw it through and made this wonderful thing that I love. 

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

How dare you make me say nice things about myself?! 

Okay … I guess my writing does something to other people that makes them want to create their own stuff. People have repeatedly told me that reading my fics kickstarted their own imagination into creating stories or art of their own. And every time that happens, I get so incredibly happy because that is like a god-tier compliment right there! That somebody found my writing so engaging that it made their brain spin off on a tangent and they created something out of it! 

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Dragons! Dragons dragons dragons dragoooooons!!!! 

The feedback I am getting for this fic just won’t stop blowing my mind, seriously, and every time I think it’s done, you guys hit me in right in the feels again with your gorgeous comments and rec lists mentions and fucking FANART! I am incredibly happy and humbled and awed that people are loving it so much! 

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

That would be Someone like you, which is a little bonus story to Someone who cares. It's a purely self-indulgent little one-shot featuring married Steddie and a baby. This universe is my emotional support AU and I loved visiting the boys again. 💕

💎why is writing important to you?

Wow, where to start? 

Because it's incredibly fun and allows me to completely immerse myself in the story I'm creating. Because I get to be self-indulgent and spoil myself and make the story exactly like I want it to be. 

And because I have met so many amazing, creative, lovely ppl through it over the past few months, who bring me joy and make me smile every single day.

I honestly don't know how I could ever go without it for so long! 

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

Okay, so I'm still firmly stuck on the demon!Eddie brainworm and fully planning on turning it into a chaptered fic. I'm still figuring out a lot of the specifics, but I've already got some nice twists and details planned. There'll be demon besties Eddie and Chrissy, a nice side of Buckingham, lots of smutty goodness, Dustin running a mystery YouTube channel and so much more, it will be glorious! 

[mitzidraws]

let them hold hands your honor

[imhidingonceagain]

I'm gonna say something very controversial about the Steddie shippers/community, but before you cancel me please just read what I have to say:

I need to start clarifying that I myself enjoy and ship Steve and Eddie. I enjoy their edits, fanart and fanfiction (I have one work written about them actually). I know that the Duffers weren't expecting them to blow up but I myself believe that they're two characters that have SO MUCH POTENTIAL to be written as a couple.

However, recently I have seen a bunch of post about Steddie shippers talking about surpassing the 8000+ works written under the Steve/Billy tag on Ao3 (They're always acting like it's a marathon. They write things lik: "Come on guy, we can do it!!!")

Listen, I understand where you guys are coming from, because I personally believe that while Billy Hargrove is an excellent written character (as in he's a really complex character) he IS a bad person, an awful person even, the list of problematic things about him is LONG.

So yeah, I understand that you guys want to surpass the number of Harringrove fanfics and put Steddie on top because it's indeed a fact that canonically Steve and Eddie have a better potential of being a healthier couple, an awesome ship.

Still, what's the point of surpassing the number of fanfiction written if the works that are being published under the Steve/ Eddie tag are not viewed as creative and fun works anymore? A lot of you are just perceiving their fanfiction just as a "number", a "target" to accomplish.

If you go through the "Eddie/Steve" tag you'll see that it is clogged with works that are just titles, works that have been improperly tagged, works that people are clearly not planning on finishing, works that are a copy of the previous one (as in it's literally the same story, the same tropes, the same dialogues and same plots with minimum variations). Works that are straight up -Excuse my language- SHITTY.

The fanfics that were written by the Stranger things fandom from 2016 until the first few months of 2022 (wether the fanfic was Mileven, Harringrove, Byler, Lumax, Jancy, Elmax, Stancy, etc) were works of people that wrote them driven by the fact that they genuinely love the fandom, the ship or just writing in general.

I can't tell or classify people's intentions (only they know why they write their stories) but by the way you guys are behaving on TikTok, Twitter, etc. in regards of the Steddie fanfiction it seems like a lot of your are only posting for the sake of posting.

Again, I'm not the fanfiction police or anything but... is it worth it?

Will it be worth it if Steddie has thousands of works under their tag if most of them are objectively a much lower quality than the 8000+ works that Steve/Billy fans have been working on for about 5 years? Why are you putting that kind of pointless pressure on yourselves?

I can testify that most of the Harringrove fanfics are very well written (I'm not a Billy Hargrove apologists, don't come from me) so when Steve and Eddie became a thing I was excited because "Yay! A non problematic ship that involves my favorite Stranger Things character (Steve) is here" and yes, at first it was fun but now that the Steve/Eddie tag is clogged with bullshit & not even half of the fanfics are good it's turning disappointing.

And yes, the Billy Hargrove of the fanfics is super "remixed" to make him less of an ass, but at least those stories are well planned and executed.

Also... The majority of the Steve/Eddie shippers seem to be the biggest Billy Hargrove antis (and I get that, canonical Billy is AN ASSHOLE, he's literally all the red flags in one dude. I would run away from him if I ever saw him on the street) but somehow you guys tend to "Billyfie" Eddie Munson a lot. You guys tend to give him Characteristics and fanfiction tropes that have been given to Billy for years...

Like, why? I find it kind of ridiculous...

At this point I don't know if I want to read more about Steve and Eddie anymore... Or if I do it I guess I'll have to sort from the thousands of awful stories that have been written in the span of months...

Or maybe in a couple of months you guys will forget about this weird behavior and will start writing decent stuff again.

As always, this is MY OPINION. If you disagree that's okay, we can have a civilized dialogue without insulting each other (also, English is not my first language, excuse my mistakes).

My advice as someone who has been reading fanfiction for more than 10 years is: Quality over quantity, guys.

Take your time! Writing can be a very personal an beautiful process, It is DEFINITELY NOT ABOUT NUMBERS, specially not in fanfiction where people are writing not as a job but FOR FUN.