#just gotta finish my one featuring steddie

[shares-a-vest]

@steddiemas Day 1: Deck the Halls (Festive Friday)

Something short and silly to start off with. I'm so excited for this event. Thank you sooo much to @steddieasitgoes for creating it 💖💖💖 I love writing Christmas stuff for ST and I have a few things planned for the Steddiemas calendar.

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laaaaaa.”

Steve would cringe if he wasn’t carrying most of the weight of the Munson’s new Christmas tree in through the front door and trying to avoid scratching himself on either the branches or the metal frame of the fly screen.

Eddie is behind him, muttering the same tune over and over, just high enough for Steve to hear, but not loud enough to call attention to himself.

He’s been like this all day – too cheery and chipper as they decorate the trailer while Wayne is at work. Busying himself with not much more than his chiming, his tone all wobbly and hollow like a kid carolling.

It’s far too early in December as far as Steve is concerned. Hell, he doubts he will even decorate his own house this year.

What’s the point if he will be home alone?

And, as Eddie lets go of what part of the tree he was barely holding in the first place, Steve begins to regret offering his help entirely as he goes careening onto the couch.

“Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.”

“Eddie!” Steve splutters, rolling on his side and palming around on the edge of the couch for support.

“What?”

He looks up to find Eddie smiling and twirling the end of his maroon scarf.

“Could you have actually helped?” he snaps.

“You said you ‘got it’!” Eddie makes half-hearted air quotes and lowers his tone in what Steve can only assume is supposed to be a mockery of his own voice.

“Asshole!” he grumbles.

“Grinch!”

Eddie pokes his tongue out at him before offering a dimple-filled grin.

Steve glares, “Can you at least bring in the box of decorations?”

Eddie turns on his heel and skips back out the front door.

“Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair and groans. Maybe he could just run out the front door, elbow Eddie out of the way of the car and speed off into the distance.

“Why am I here?” he mutters to himself.

He takes the opportunity to catch his breath and looks the tree over. Thankfully, it isn’t damaged - save for the odd fallen pine shoot.

Eddie soon hops back up the stairs, winter boots shaking the metal landing as he cradles the box of decorations they had gathered between Melvads, Goodwill and the dollar store.

“I love Christmas!” he beams as he sets the box on the coffee table to begin rummaging, “Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.”

Eddie hands over a bauble. It’s red and green, the stripes broken up with gold glitter. One that Steve had picked from Melvads’ Christmas aisle.

Their fingers brush as Steve takes the bauble and he looks up to find Eddie grinning from ear to ear.

That’s why he’s here, he thinks, smiling back.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: Wormdebut! Wormdebut has published 18 fics on AO3 all in the steddie tag!

@thefreakandthehair recommends the following works by @wormdebut:

Tell Eddie He Looks Sexy With His Hair Pushed Back

Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face)

Hell Bent For Leather

All You Have Is Your Fire

It Feels Like Fourteen Carats But No Clarity (When I Look At The Man Who Would Be King)

Worm is incredible! For a humble worm, they sure know how to write fanfiction. ;) But seriously, Worm has a way of exploring different dynamics in such depth with an immense amount of care that's so obvious in the finish products! -- @thefreakandthehair

Below the cut, Wormdebut answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

These two idiots inspire me. I mean look at them. I think the thing I love about Steve and Eddie is that to me they are destined to be together. Post-Canon, Alternate Universe. It doesn’t matter. They are meant to be together in any scenario. I could and will write about these two forever.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Rockstar Eddie, baby. I love some good sex, drugs and rock and roll.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Is safe (mostly)sane and consensual BDSM a trope? I like to write that. 😂

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Tuesday’s Gone With The Wind - Thisapplepielife there is nothing quite like reading this for the first time. I truly thought I was going to explode as it was being updated.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Omegaverse! I have a fic in the worm vault that will come out eventually. Wormegaverse. It’s coming. I’m fucking stoked for it.

What is your writing process like?

Hoooboy. It’s a mess. I cannot write an outline to save my life. (I’m looking at you King of Hell Eddie fic. I know you need an outline okay?) I tend to write in order, but if I get stuck I will skip a scene or two ahead so I can figure out how to squish two pieces of a story together OR I will write little notes about my intentions and skip it and come back. (My favorite note of all time is when I wrote “spit kink shit.” So I could remember my very pure intentions)

Do you have any writing quirks?

Boy do I! I tend to go into like writing fugue states where I will just bust out thousands of words in a sitting and if I am not doing that I am thinking and over thinking about when im gonna fugue out again. I also get really stressed when it actually comes time to write a sex scene? Weird, I know. But every single one is super important to me and I want to make sure they read well. My friends can attest that I am an absolute basket case when it comes to me writing Steve and Eddie getting down and dirty.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

God when I’m done. I am NOT great at posting chaptered fics but I am trying to get better with it? I prefer writing larger pieces though. I am an over-thinker to a fault and for some reason I stress less with one-shots.

Which fic are you most proud of?

It’s gotta be Kiss Your Knuckles. That fic is everything to me. But my Boys Who Kiss series is also so fucking important to me. Those two have so much more to tell y’all and I can’t wait to share their lives with you. I’m a musician so any of my fics that are heavily laced with performance and song are very special.

How did you get the idea for Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face)?

I remember listening to Twin Size Mattress one day and I was like—Holy Shit, this is so Steddie-Coded it hurts. And it’s post-canon AND Rockstar Eddie? Incredible. The words just screamed Eddie Behavior and I knew Steve had to write a one-hit wonder about how he felt.

When writing Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face), what was something you didn’t expect?

Oh I sobbed when I finished it. I couldn’t believe that I had actually finished it. It truly means the world to me and I wanted to share it with you all so badly. I cried for like an hour.

What inspired It Feels Like Fourteen Carats But No Clarity (When I Look At The Man Who Would Be King)?

Honestly? Tumblr user @ghosttotheparty had made a post about the scenario that Fourteen Carats is about and I messaged them and was like hey listen I want to take a shot at this, if that’s okay. Fourteen Carats is the first fully formed fic that I have ever posted aside from tumblr Drabbles and while I personally don’t love it I keep it up just in case someone somewhere does. 😂

What was your favorite part to write from All You Have Is Your Fire?

OH. Absolutely just eluding to Tattoo Legend and Icon, Jim Hopper. God he so fucking hot neat.

How do/did you feel writing Tell Eddie He Looks Sexy With His Hair Pushed Back?

I felt some type of a way, clearly. I think this is my favorite Eddie that I have ever written (My favorite Steve is Kiss Your Knuckles Steve) and he just kept getting more and more interesting. Like who the hell fucks you and speaks French while they do it? Tell Eddie Eddie does. And thank god for that guy.

What was the most difficult part of writing Hellbent For Leather?

Writing sub/bottom Eddie! I did this fic as a gift for tumblr user @gorgeousgreymatter-x (love you bitch) and it was hard because I don’t often write that dynamic, but god damn I loved these two Steddies.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Ah— “It is, and I do.” Something about French chef Eddie, really—yeah. I am proud of everything I have written but if I can be honest with you I rarely remember what I have done. I often joke that it’s simply Steve and Eddie in my brain just writing what they want, because people will quote my work or talk to me about a scene and I’m like—‘I wrote that?? Nice.’

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

WELL. Once I can break myself out of this accidental hiatus I am so excited to share more of For Your Entertainment with yall. I am also so fucking excited to share King Of Hell Eddie with the world. I can’t fucking wait. I am working on a ‘Came Back Wrong’ fic that is less scary and more comedic and I am stoked for that. I have quite a few things that are happening and I am just so fucking excited to share them all with you. 

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Just thank you. Thank you for reading and thanks for letting me be a part of all of this. I have not felt this inspired and loved in a long fucking time and I’m not going anywhere so I hope yall will stick around for the wild ride. Fucking love you.

Thank you to our author, Wormdebut, and our nominator, @thefreakandthehair! See more of Wormdebut's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  Pricklywhicket/@messessentialist ! Prickleywhicket has four fics published to AO3 -- All in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by pricklywhicket:

so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey

it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)

start by pulling him out of the fire

"Sadie is so super talented in the way she describes literally everything. She is so good at writing and it's a shame that she's flown under the radar because she's not the quickest at putting things out there." -- Anonymous

Below the cut, Pricklywhicket answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

Why do any of us write anything? Because we want the story to exist in the world, and it doesn’t yet, so we gotta hike up our pants and do it ourselves!

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Hurt/Comfort. I’m always a sucker for the blorbos taking care of one another, in whatever form that takes. This has always been true, across a truly astronomical number of fandoms I’ve found myself dabbling in over the years.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

…actually, probably hurt/comfort! I just need to get those little dudes some validation and unconditional positive regard, okay?

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I’m sure I won’t be the first one to say this, but: I HAVE TO PICK ONE????? Okay, alright. I can do this. I’m gonna say…Sanctuary by SpicedSage.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve only written canon or canon-adjacent fic so far, so I’m eager to work on something that’s completely AU. I think there’s a unique challenge to keeping characters recognizable as themselves in a world that might not have all the same contexts that made them into that person.

What is your writing process like?

I would love to say it’s super organized and well-planned, but the truth is it’s mostly about routine and responsibility. I set aside time to do it every day, even if I can only tap out a few sentences. I’m not very strict about writing in a straight line - I can stop a scene if it’s giving me trouble, write a note about what I think happens in some [brackets], and move on to something that I have more fully fleshed-out ideas for. Sometimes writing the next scene helps you know more about what needs to happen in the current one. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

I'm sure my betas would say yes 🙃 I tend to write a lot of dialogue - a lot of my revision process is going back through and realizing I have two pages of a conversation with no indication of what’s physically happening in the world around the speakers.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Definitely when I’m finished. Prior to my ‘23 bang fic, I had never written anything chaptered. I knew going in that I could NOT start posting if it wasn’t finished, because I’ve been burned too many times by abandoned works. I didn’t want to do that to people reading my fic, and the best way to avoid it is to finish before you post.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Easily start by pulling him out of the fire. The biggest, most ambitious thing I’ve ever attempted - I still kind of can’t believe I wrote 85k.

How did you get the idea for start by pulling him out of the fire?

Like most terrible ideas, it was spawned in a fandom discord chat. We were discussing the tendency of Steddie fics to centralize the party at Steve’s house, because his parents are never there anyway. And then someone mentioned what if the parents came home and found their house occupied, and someone else mentioned Wayne being there, and it just sort of…spiraled out from there.

When writing start by pulling him out of the fire, what was something you didn’t expect?

I had no idea, going in, that I was going to write a comprehensive history of the Wayne and Eddie Munson relationship. I started writing it where I did to give some background on Wayne’s existing distaste for the elder Harrington, and then I just…kept writing. Over the course of a month or two I wrote 20k of WayneAndEddie that I had no idea was in me - it just kept coming.

What inspired it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)?

@wynnyfryd. It was a gift for her birthday. We were talking about our mutual love of Letterkenny, and she mentioned that the episode was her favorite and wouldn’t it be funny if someone wrote… and the rest is history.

What was your favorite part to write from it's supposed to be fun (turning twenty-one)?

I had an unreasonable amount of fun with that one in general. But I think my favorite part was Eddie polling the party about what Steve means to them all. It was fun to sort of put myself in each character’s shoes and think about how they would answer. Plus y’know, any excuse to unironically love on Steve Harrington.

How do/did you feel writing so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey?

I believe my exact words upon deciding to write it were “jingles miserably to a blank google doc.” This was a classic case of saying “god I wish there was a fic where—” and having friends tell me that it was now my responsibility to write it. I’m glad I did, though. I love that story, and it proved to me that I could write sex and publish it and not burst into flames. I also just really, really love summer storms. And Wayne’s use of the singular ‘herpe.’

What was the most difficult part of writing so let's sneak in from the cheap seats honey?

Getting over the fear of publishing something E-rated. It was just something I hadn’t done, and I had a lot of anxiety that people were not going to respond well to it. I made three people individually review the sex scenes before I even asked anyone to beta the full fic. Of course I was worried for nothing, the reception for that fic was super lovely and gave me the confidence boost I needed to attempt start by pulling him out of the fire!

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

This is like asking me to pick a favorite child. I’ll say this: most of my favorite lines in start by pulling him out of the fire were taken directly from conversations @wormdebut and I had about the fic. She’s my number one cheerleader and sounding board, and sometimes she’s so goddamn funny that I just have to include it. You have her to thank, for instance, for Steve quite literally dropping his croissant when he first sees Eddie in glasses.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I have a couple of irons in the fire, but nothing I’m ready to share just yet! I’ve been taking a breather from writing (blame baldur’s gate 3, okay) but my WIPs are still very much IP. Stay tuned!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Not that I can think of!

Thank you to our author, Pricklywhicket, and our anonymous nominator! See more of pricklywhicket's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!