#i'm not even trying to upload a whole fucking game to ao3 so if i ever make this publically available it'll be in the form of yt letsplays

[bumblewarden]

kinda wanna fuck around and rewrite one of my fics into rpgmaker

or like. i could, once i have a larger library complete, put them all in there as one larger episodic retelling of novhen's whole deal 👀

in a default asset sort of mood

[mustlovesteve]

laughing at the broken glass

AO3 link

Summary:

In which Steve Harrington stumbles upon a vampiric Eddie Munson and makes some questionable decisions, including locking Eddie in his basement. Though Eddie isn't thrilled with this arrangement, he seems awfully excited to watch vampire movies with his captor. Steve is determined to not lose anyone this time, but with Vecna seeking out new prey, he might just lose himself.

my friend @spicy-cannoli drew some lovely fanart of my fic, laughing at the broken glass. i decided to share them alongside relevant scene excerpts (w/ her permission of course)! fyi, she doesn't draw steddie, so don't follow her for that.

these naturally include spoilers (for chapters 14-23 specifically), so i'm putting the rest of them behind the cut.

from Chapter 14 (15th uploaded chapter including the prologue):

“Heeeeey, Ste— What the fuck?” Eddie leapt back when the coywolf bounded towards him with a loud squeal. His efforts to dodge were futile. The nail-bat clattered against the pavement as the coywolf tackled him and sent him sprawling backwards. She licked at Eddie’s face, muffling the rest of his complaints. “Oh, so you’re going to pretend you don’t know who that is,” Steve said, letting the sarcasm drip from his voice. He leaned back against the door and took a bite of the garlic knot. “That’s real cute, Munson.” Eddie looked up at him, eyes wide and arms spread out like a starfish. “She sure knows who you are.” “Steve, what the hell is this thing?” Eddie questioned. He shoved the coywolf off him and scrambled to his feet. Nose wrinkled in disgust, he tried to wipe the slobber off his face. “Jesus. I’d ask if you spontaneously adopted a dog this morning, but this is not a dog!” “Good catch,” Steve said. He took another bite of the garlic knot and gestured with it as he spoke. “Hey, question for you. Remember what I told you to not even try to do? That power you might have?” Eddie’s eyes kept darting between Steve and the coywolf. His absolutely baffled expression would have been funny if Steve wasn’t so ticked off right now. “Did you happen to try using it last night? To, I dunno, find someone, maybe?” “I still don’t know what—” With another squeal, the coywolf trotted back to Steve. She looked over at Eddie, yip-howled, tried to tug Steve towards Eddie by the hem of his sweatpants, looked over at Eddie again, and yip-howled again. “Well, she found me,” Steve deadpanned. It shouldn’t have felt so satisfying to witness the slowly-dawning horrified realization spreading across Eddie’s face, but it did. Steve finished the garlic knot and crossed his arms. “Y’know what time she came by? Four-thirty.”

-

from Chapter 20 (21st uploaded chapter including the prologue):

Dustin kept mentioning that Eddie was being way too nice in explaining the rules and that it was freaking him out. Mike seemed to be pissed off as soon as he saw Steve and grew livid over the span of the first hour. Max, who had refused to explain why she’d chosen to show up today, was steadily amused throughout, while Lucas became increasingly confused. Erica went from curious to delighted. Will was acting the strangest among them, with flashes of sadness that seemed unfitting for someone who was finally playing DND with his friends again. That giant wizard hat that he was wearing made it all the more jarring. The kids didn’t act this strange the whole time. For the most part, they were all pretty absorbed in Will’s game, Steve included; Will was really good at drawing everyone in as he weaved his tale. The strangeness primarily happened whenever Eddie tried to explain something to him, or whenever the kids looked at Steve, even though—he could not emphasize this enough—he wasn’t doing anything. “Okay, why is everyone acting all weird?” Steve finally asked, when the game had wrapped up. Beside him, Eddie coughed. “Yeah, I’m here. Shocking, I know. Get over it. I was already here anyway.” Tilting his head and tipping ever so slightly towards Eddie, Steve added, “Eddie’s the only one acting normal, actually.” “He’s acting normal, huh?” Max asked, narrowing her eyes. “Interesting.” Rather than slip on one of her usual smug looks, she paused before biting her lip and looking away. “I mean, that’s—” “I don’t think he’s acting normal at all,” Dustin insisted, pouting. He leaned towards Eddie and pressed his palms against the table. “Eddie, why won’t you be that nice to me? Is it because I didn’t let you drink my blood? Because that’s really unfair. I would have, you know.”

-

from Chapter 23 (24th uploaded chapter):

Steve stared at Eddie, slack-jawed. That question was completely incomprehensible. He wasn’t even sure it was in English. “What the fuck is a doghouse?” Steve asked. “Oh fuck.” Eddie looked horrified, clutching the sides of his head. “Fuck. But I didn’t even…” “Wait, no.” Steve squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “I know what a doghouse is.” “Oh. Okay. That’s...good.” Eddie lowered his hands, which were still shaking, to his sides. “I— Shit. Uh. Hang on.” Eddie was gone in a flash, leaving Steve alone in the bedroom.

-

BONUS:

once again, all of the art was created by @spicy-cannoli, and my fic can be found here!

[happyk44]

24 (thoughts about flashbacks/flashforwards) and 25 (Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?) for the ask game!

24: Thoughts about Flashbacks/Flashforwards

I think flashbacks can be useful - for example, for comedic or dramatic purposes. So I don't mind them! I think in written works it can be difficult to portray depending on how the story is formatted. It's often easier for flashbacks to be represented as short emotional bursts - for example, a character being triggered about their past and remembering things for a couple paragraphs before being pulled back to the present. However, I think you can show longer form flashbacks in written works, as long as you make it obvious that you're ducking into the past. In Sarah Dessen's Just Listen, there's one chapter in the whole novel dedicated to a flashback by the main character in which she finally reveals the secret that she's been alluding to throughout the beginning of the book. And in one of my books, a side character pulls the main character into a flashback to show the circumstances of what caused the present day conflict. The upside to writing out flashbacks as separate chapters in this way is you don't have to retell the entire situation through dialogue and you can convey more emotion to the situation through description. Flashforwards I haven't seen much in any kind of media to be honest. The only flashforward I can think of is in this long form MHA fanfic I've been reading for the past few years. Every other chapter is dedicated to the future of the boys. I don't mind them, either, but I haven't seen much to determine an opinion on it. I think depending on the use it can take away from the main story or be confusing to the audience. In the example I linked above, I stopped reading the flashfowards for a while because it made it hard to keep track of what was going on in the original plot.

25: Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?

Lmao, at first I thought this was about outlining of which I am a huge fan but lmao, no. Writing the whole thing beforehand is probably better. Is it convenient for a lot of fanfic authors? God no. Do I wish I could do it? Fucking all the time.

Chaptered works take time and effort and I've written enough to know that the story can easily change as you write it, even if you have the whole thing outlined to hell and back. I was one of those plucky preteen fanfic writers on FFNet who used the "it was all a dream" narrative a couple times because I fell out of love with the story the way it was going but didn't want to scrap it all or claim it as incomplete. So I just smacked "it was all a dream" on it and then started over at chapter 32, lmao.

For people who publish their work for free, who write fanfiction as a hobby, who are often plagued by busy lives and work schedules and real life situations, writing a chaptered fic before publishing it is often not very feasible. About 3 of my WIPs are fics I told myself I would finish before publishing and then uploaded them months later because I got tired, busy, couldn't muster the mental energy to write it even though it is all (or mostly) outlined, and was just ultimately tired of the fics sitting there unread in my documents.

It's also a lot easier for fanfic writers to generate fans, follows, comments and general readership by uploading their fic part by part. I've seen some writers who have either written the whole thing out or have written a lot of it in advance and publish on a weekly schedule do this for exact same thing.

There's also the part that I struggle with, which is actually having a finished work to show though. A bunch of fics on my AO3 are uncompleted, not because I've lost interest, but just because I've lost energy with them. Which is why I've always sort of hung myself in the past about finishing the whole thing before publishing (something I'm still trying to get over, fandom is paved in unfinished fanfic and that's not something any fanfic author should beat themselves up over).

Original work is also often something you'll rewrite and edit until you think it's the best you can do. Fanfic is generally a first draft with some editing type of situation, so having a completed work in advance to go through and obsess over isn't really anyone's first thought.

Ultimately, it's really up to the author to decide what they want to do about it. I personally would love to have all my chaptered fics completed before I publish just so I can have a finished work to present (instead of something I tell myself I'll finish at some point) but it's just easier to write and publish as I go.