#like a neat 500 words of sheer insanity

[grandwretch]

ok let me talk about the steddie sentinel au I wanna write bc like. its all I can fucking think about yk

alright so. I want it to be closer to show canon bc the shows origins have really been like. lost in the fanfic trope of it all which is cool and all but i think that making it show canon could be so delicious.

and like its set a decade before the show right so it would be like. blair's research into sentinels and guides would have never been published, so it's a great way to have something weird and terrifying happen to steve and NO ONE ELSE IN PUBLISHED HISTORY has been through it before so its really up to the Party to figure it out.

so I'm thinking that Steve comes "online" while in the Upside Down. because that's the most stress he's ever been in AND I think its what his instincts would see most as a survival/tribal situation like. he has three people he has to protect and he's literally in a blighted hell dimension and also if he doesn't take care of everyone, Max will die and, oh yeah, he has no proof that Jonathan, El, Will, and Mike aren't already dead.

He chalks the random oversensitivity to stress and wounds. Its not until he's in his hospital room that he realizes he can hear Eddie's heartbeat from across the hall. He yanks the IV out of his arm and goes to find Dustin.

After that, I think there's like a huge squabble about Steve's "powers" and whether or not they're real and what they mean. Steve doesn't think of them as powers, he doesn't think they compare to El at all and they're functionally useless. "I can't SMELL a demogorgon to death, Dustin." Robin freaks out and wonders if Steve is a vessel like Will now, but they all dismiss it because Will got weaker, not faster and stronger. Eddie practically climbs inside Steve's mouth looking for fangs.

El quietly asks if Steve is from a lab, too. Steve says his dad is pretty awful, but he's not an evil mad scientist sponsored by the government or whatever.

So they undergo a series of stress tests, trying to find the outer limits of what Steve can do. Hopper gets surprisingly into the whole thing, sending Steve through drills and training that he picked up in the military. Steve's Sentinel powers come to him much more smoothly than Jim, simply because he has a much more structured regimen, and less near death experiences while he gets used to his new senses.

Steve fucking hates it. He hates feeling like a science experiment, and he hates running stupid obstacle courses and letting El throw things at him to test his reaction time. He hates how his entire stupid life has become about this... thing that's happened to him, thats not even that useful, because its not like he's stronger. He's just a better fighter for a human, which isn't going to do much against Vecna.

Even worse, he had to quit his job, because turning all his senses up to 11 has made retail impossible. The blend of perfumes and body odor gives him headaches, he can't stand being able to hear every fucking conversation in the store, and the fluorescent lights hurt his eyes.

Throughout it all, the Munson's trailer is kind of a refuge. After Eddie finally accepted that Steve wasn't some kind of sexy vampire here to seduce their souls away, he dismissed whatever was happening to Steve as boring. So Steve feels like a fucking human again with Eddie, and-- Okay, Eddie is loud and grating and always smells like weed, but those things were already annoying before Steve was like this. He's used to tuning it out, so its almost comforting to be surrounded by them.

Besides, everything the Munsons own is well worn and soft, not like the textures of his own home, more pleasing to the eye than the skin. And if Steve asks very nicely, Eddie will play his acoustic; sweet, soft melodies that don't hurt Steve's ears like the radio does.

(Unbeknownst to Steve, Eddie learns all his favorite songs in a flurry of tapes. He replaces all the soap and detergent in the house with the fancy kind meant for people with allergies. He spends so much money Steve-proofing his place, but he never complains once. He never wants Steve to leave again.)

But the Munson trailer can't stop the worst of it, which is Steve's unbearable need to protect. He already had a superhero complex, but now its even worse. If he goes too long without doing something active, there's an itch under his skin that he can't shake. So he has to venture out again, back to Hoppers' canon for more stupid tests, or patrolling around the town until even his improved stamina falters.

Thats how he zones, the first time. He's roaming through the streets when he hears Dustin and Lucas up in Dustin's room, laughing at some movie. He focuses on the sound of their laughter for a little too long, and suddenly thats all he can hear. Thats all he can feel at all, actually, just their voices. It consumes him.

They find him like that when Lucas goes to leave, hours later. Standing in the Henderson's yard, bat in hand, unmoving. They call everyone, but Eddie gets there first, driving like the devil is after him. He freaks out, understandably, but Dustin calms him with the facts that Steve's eyes haven't rolled, and he's been gone for who knows how long without floating, so its probably not Vecna.

Eddie doesn't feel better.

They try every song on every tape Steve owns. He flinches at a few louder ones, but nothing works. Eventually, Hopper and Jonathan manage to get Steve into a car, his body unresponsive in their hands.

Robin wants to take him to the hospital, but Nancy tells her, softly, that it might alert the wrong people to Steve's condition. What wouldn't the American military do for a body with improved reflexes and speed, who can see and avoid a speeding bullet, and hear the heartbeats of his enemies? They take him to the trailer, because Eddie insists that he and Wayne will be able to take care of Steve. They know what he likes, what triggers him, better than people who do it on purpose.

The worry makes Eddie maybe a little meaner than he means to be.

When they get him home, Eddie wraps Steve up in all his favorite blankets, ones that smell like them both and Wayne's favorite cigarettes. He kisses Steve's forehead and sits next to him on the bed, playing his acoustic and singing all Steve's favorite songs. He knows they didn't work before, but he doesn't know what else to do, and if he just has to watch Steve lay there, he'll cry.

Its the first time, and he's been stuck so long it takes him forever to find his way out, but eventually Steve surfaces. His eyes blink into focus and he swallows around a dry throat.

Steve looks at Eddie, the man who Guided him out of the deep, dark well of his own mind.

"What'd I miss?"

[victoriadallonfan]

Hello Ridtom, I've been a fan of your parahumans art for a while and I can't believe I only just found out you have a Tumblr blog!

One of my favorite things about Wildbow's writing is the absolutely astounding level of personality he infuses into his characters; When getting friends into his work I always point out the first 500-1k words of Pact and how insanely well it characterizes its protagonist through his thoughts on his family, their matriarch's estate, and the town around them.

Who do you think is the most well characterized character in Wildbow's body of work? Who do you think is the worst?

Who do I think is the most well characterized character in Wildbow's body of work?

Looks at name and avatar

...Probably Lucy, Verona, and Avery. Like, from sheer quantity of words to page, these three simply have more characterization and evolution than Taylor, Blake, Victoria, and Sylvester. And he manages to do this while writing three different protag pov's and alternating between them like, every other update!

Victoria is my favorite protag he's ever made, but there's simply no denying that LVA are his current mangum opus.

I don't think there's really a bad characterization of protags? Like, all of them have soft spots in my heart. Even Sylvester, who I don't relate to at all, has parts to me that I feel attachment towards and fondness. Even if I don't like the character archetype, that feels different to thinking it's a bad archetype. The most I can say is that I think Twig focuses too much on how kickass Sy is without the Lambs and how the Lambs are outmatched without him, when I felt one of the neat parts of early Twig was that Sy sucked major ass by himself when it came to conflicts. But is that bad characterization or a story direction I didn't like? Don't know, but I'd lean towards the latter.

And thank you for appreciating the art I've done! Love the support!