#they really do live rent free in my brain

[hanafubukki]

I'm back with another Lilia thought! This one isn't mafia au though, so you can wait with reading it so it won't spoil the immersion lol ( I'm so glad you liked it btw 😭)

This one is about you being Lilia's fae s/o. When he went to NRC with the boys he gave you a cell phone to stay in touch with him with. You use it to play games together and communicate (I think it'd be mostly texting as to simulate writing letters to your loved one who's away), but something he'll never tell anybody about are the more private messages you share. Because he's an old man, sensing lustful messages with Lilia is like writing prose. Taking turns to write and seeing the messages show up in real time...there's just something about this old man and language when it comes to intimate times. He'll save the conversations to re-read whenever he's needy. There's not much video/photo sharing (again, to fit with the whole writing letters thing), but it'd be fun I think if you discover the Twisted Wonderland version of Only Fans and jokingly tell Lilia that you wanna make an account and have him as your only subscriber. He actually loves the idea, of you being needy and the way he finds out is a ping notification that you've uploaded a new photo of yourself- for his eyes only. You'd want the account to be private since it's for personal use but I can see Lilia maybe being adventurous and being into teasing other men knowing they'll never have you. They can see a few clothed pictures but the number of people who can see it all never goes above 1.

-Fake Date Sebek Anon

[Talking about this fic]

Hello Fake Date Sebek Anonie 🌺🌷💞

That Lilia Mafia ask really just hit me suddenly and released all the core memories I had and I couldn’t not make it into a flower shop combination. Thank you Anonie, that AU lives in my brain rent free 💞💞

God can you imagine?? The text messages switches between Victorian flirting to modern flirting and sometimes the combination. Texting each other how much you missed the other so.

Telling him, how you miss his warmth and his touch. How your own imagination and hands can do so much. Even magical toys do not help. Gradually it shifts to this account you see humans use.

How innovative and advanced. Of course you bring it up to Lilia and he’s down. As long as it’s only him that can see it. He loves knowing no one can have you. You’re his.

He loves to show off your more casual pictures but he’s full of pride. No one else can see you, feel you, or touch you. No one else would know your taste.

Hm? What’s this? It’s as if you heard him. You sent him a new picture. He’s happy that fae’s have an abundance of magic. Silver, Sebek, and Malleus can look after each other for a few hours.

He’s going to teleport to you right now. The urge to feel and taste you too great. His hands itches to shred the clothes you have on and Lilia is not one to deny himself of his favorite treat. 💞🌺

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  Penny00Dreadful! @penny00dreadful has 29 fics in the Stranger Things fandom with 25 of them being in the Steddie Tag!

@hbyrde36 recommends the following works by @penny00dreadful:

Crossroads

Cat and Mouse

I'll Tell You My Sins and You Can Sharpen Your Knife

And They Were Roommates!

The Parting Glass

Sam, on top of being an absolutely amazing writer (AND artist!), is one of the brightest lights in this fandom (in my humble opinion). She is incredibly kind and encouraging, always ready to uplift other authors in the Steddie and ST fanfic worlds. I have had the incredible pleasure of being her beta reader for quite some time now, and am consistently blown away by her talent. There isn't a single one of her works that I wouldn't recommend, they are all fantastic reads. -- @hbyrde36

Below the cut, @penny00dreadful answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

Opposites attract has always been a major draw for me, especially in my fandoms. Every pairing I’ve ever gotten into in every fandom I’ve been in have all been opposites attract and I’m not going to lie to you, I did not make that realization until this question. 😅 I had a very “Huh… that tracks” moment about it. 🤣 So the opposites attract factor is definitely big for me and while I suppose you could say that’s true for many, many pairings in fandom, there’s something about the complete opposite of both Steve and Eddie that is just enrapturing. From their aesthetic, to their personalities, to their upbringing, it creates such incredibly interesting parallels and options for building stories around them. On top of that, the two of them are so compelling as characters. Their various hang ups and traumas, their loves and hates, the time period and the genre of work they originated in all coalesce into something so captivating. I adore the two of them so much, they’re so fascinating. I think everyone can find a little bit of themselves in either one of them, but especially with the addition of Eddie into the series we got a character who was ‘other’, in the same way so many of us feel and are seen, he speaks to us on such a personal level. So, yeah. I love them.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Oh boy. There are so many. Enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort, fluff. But if I had to pick one that has been my longest standing love, it would have to be a slow burn. Like, when it hits, it hits. And it hits hard.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

I looooove writing some tasty hurt/comfort. There’s just something so addictive about someone needing to be taken care of after something bad or traumatic happens or they’ve just had a really shitty day. It’s so cathartic. And also, I cannot like, I love getting comments screaming at me that I’ve made people hurt or cry or feel things because I know I’m going to make it better, I’m gonna give them that comfort. And it’s such an incredible compliment from people when they tell me that my writing has made them feel feelings. Like it is the highest praise possible that I could induce that in someone. It feels amazing.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Oh my god, that is such a difficult question to answer. I have read so many that have left a permanent mark on my heart or completely rewired my brain. I had to go look through my bookmarks to narrow it down because my god, there are so many talented people in this fandom and even then I was attempted to just give a list of all my top ones because, god they make me feel so many things, people are so fucking talented, I love them. But I would say if I had to choose one, there’s one that lives rent free in my brain. I think of it all the time, it is so god damn special to me and if I’m being honest with myself, it’s the first one that came to mind, It would have to be wouldn’t it be nice (if we could wake up) by kissesforcas  kissesforcas I have talked about this fic on my blog before but it just hits me in the right way every time I read it, it’s absolutely magical. I can’t recommend it enough, please go read it. It changed me completely.  There’s so many beautiful moments in it, the two boys are so protective of each other in it, but they also adore their found family and will defend them at any cost, the two of them feel real, their communication feels genuine and honest and realistic while also being true to their characters, I just adore it.

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

YES. FANTASY. It is wild to me that I have not done a fully fledged fantasy AU at all yet. Like I adore fantasy, what gives? Why have I not done it yet? Omg ALSO, historical. Like a lot of my special interests are historical based, WHY have I not done that yet?? AND, AND horror maybe? Like a psychological or zombie or paranormal/supernatural or slasher. So many things I haven’t explored that I want to do, and I can’t wait!

What is your writing process like?

Okay, so first things first, I get an idea.  Kind of obvious, I know, but yeah, the idea stage. Usually it’ll be something that hit out of nowhere, I’ll write down one line in the ideas doc and then pretend I won’t be thinking of it for the rest of the day. Then when I admit to myself I want to expand on it, I’ll take all of the brain worms attached to that idea and put them in their own doc. It’ll all be VERY disjointed at this stage, just a stream of consciousness of different situations/conversations/plot bunnies that popped into my head. Once I feel like I have enough of a concept through that, I begin to put them in order, maybe add a few more. Then I outline. I’m an outline kinda gal.  Over a page or two I’ll give a bare bones outline of what the fic will be, almost like it’s a short story? But still very rough.  Then I’ll start writing, usually in chronological order, I find that makes it easier to plant seeds and foreshadow and create consistency with the voice of the fic. Sometimes I will jump ahead if I’m really excited about a particular part of the fic, I’ll get it out before I lose steam on it. HOWEVER, I find that I almost ALWAYS diverge from the outline. If, as I’m writing, things start going in a different direction, I go with the flow, I don’t fight it. Fighting it, I feel is detrimental to my writing, trying to force myself into a box and hey, going with the flow has been working out pretty well for me so far. 🤣

Do you have any writing quirks?

Quirks? I dunno about that. I think I’m a pretty standard writer, but I do end up writing across three devices a lot of the time depending on where’s more comfortable. PC, tablet and phone. I’ll always stick to writing whatever my brain is focusing on at that time, but if I know I need to get a fic out and I’m not really feeling the inspo anymore, I’ll give myself an extra boost by watching movies with similar themes, listening to music related to it, or even just searching the trope on Pinterest can help me generate excitement about it again.Also do yourself a favor and get yourself a Bluetooth keyboard. It’s a game changer for writing on your phone.

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

I’ve done both and I much prefer posting on a set schedule. I always try to get the fic at least 50% finished before I start posting to give myself a nice cushion. Yeah, the immediate endorphin hit of posting once I’m done is great, but I much prefer the option to have a fic mostly or completely done before I post, so I can go back in and tweak things to make a theme hit harder or stick in a tad more foreshadowing or even just to edit.

Which fic are you most proud of?

I love all of my works, honestly. I write for me. I write the things I want to read. I think it would be difficult to narrow down a fic that I am the most proud of. Like I’m actually having a really difficult time picking one and saying “This one. This is the one I am most proud of.” Because I am proud of all of them and it’s for each of their own reasons. Like, some are very, very personal to me, some are stories that made me feel completely unhinged and obsessed(affectionately) and some are stories that touched people in very real ways, or made them feel safe and seen and that is so incredibly special to me. It’s a bit of a cop out to say that I can’t pick one, I can’t choose between my children, but I really can’t, they’re all so special, at least to me, in their own ways.

How did you get the idea for Crossroads?

So I have never seen the movie The Old Guard, but I have heard of it and while I know that reincarnation is not an aspect of that movie, I was struck with the idea of someone going through life over, and over, and over again, just to be close to the one they love the most. Like that kind of time bending devotion. And I had a brain worm of various historical ways of dying and I couldn’t figure out a way to write all of them into one fic before the idea of reincarnation hit. The very first image I had in my head of Eddie dying was being burned at the stake, so I had to work my way up to that time period and beyond. I knew I didn’t want it to be something that had only happened a few times over a couple of hundred years.  I knew I wanted it to be an ancient, centuries spanning kind of devoted love which is what led me to Ancient Greece, and in leading me there, I had to figure out why this was happening. Why Steve was traversing time just to be next to his boy again. Hecate appeared out of the mist and invaded my brain and it all kind of spilled out onto the page after that. 

When writing Cat and Mouse, what was something you didn’t expect?

I gotta be honest, the whole fic was unexpected. 😅 It was one of those stories when I originally thought of it, it was only gonna be a short little thing, maybe one or two chapters. By the end of it we were at 16 chapters and over 70K. Apparently I have no idea how to write anything short. But I think what also took me by surprise was how feral the two of them were for each other even though they didn't actually get together until later. I knew I wanted to have them being snappy and flirtatious for the whole thing and it evolved into the two of them being so dedicated to each other after only meeting a few times. I also didn’t expect the wild reaction I got to the fic, people loved it and were chomping for more and I was floored by it, it made me so incandescently happy!

What inspired Cat and Mouse?

So, the short answer is I saw this post from steddielations and it burrowed so deep into my brain, I had to get it out! Long answer is it was a mix of that post, and then a bit of Mr & Mrs. Smith mixed in along with John Wick. I just loved the idea of two deadly people being so soft for each other they’d be willing to burn the world for each other, do anything at any cost to keep the other safe.

What was your favorite part to write from And They Were Roommates!?

Oh my god, the banter. The banter was loaded with bitching and queerspeak and jabs, it was so much fun. I hadn’t really seen a story where the steddie boys had been bitchy queers before, like leaning into it and I just had to, I had to. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up and I could have gone on for ages just the two of them biting back and forth.

How do/did you feel writing I'll Tell You My Sins and You Can Sharpen Your Knife?

Conflicted, honestly. I was worried the POV I was writing from would be a little too out there, you know? There were a few times throughout writing where I thought I’d have to go back and change it out to be more of a standard fic but at the end of the day it felt so right to have the story told the way it was and it also felt very in line with Take Me To Church as well. It’s also the most poetic piece of writing I have done to date and while it’s not something I can see myself revisiting too often, it was a fantastic exercise in moving out of my comfort zone. It got me, right in the heart.

What was the most difficult part of writing The Parting Glass?

Oh boy. The whole fic was an exercise in catharsis. It was a way of processing my own grief after losing a family member and getting it all out into words was very, very helpful. I think the hardest part was just putting down into words how Eddie was feeling right in the aftermath, you know? Like grief is such a personal thing, everyone experiences it differently, so I wanted to try to figure out how Eddie would respond to it, especially considering it was the death of someone so important to him. So to have him looking around the trailer and it being empty but still with bits of Wayne dotted around like he was about to walk back through the door was probably the realest and most difficult part for me.

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

Oh god there’s so many! I could pick so many! But the first thing that came to mind is the small interaction between Eddie and Robin in Return of The King, when Steve is demonstrating his newly acquired vampire strength for the kids and Eddie has to hold onto Robin to keep himself from melting into a puddle: “Down boy.” She muttered. “Me next.” He practically whimpered right back. “Oh god, Robbie, I wanna be that stump. Tell him to do me next.” “You’re pathetic.” “What about it?” [...] Robin leaned in close to his ear but continued to stare at Steve. “If you two don’t calm the fuck down I’m going to get the hose.” Wet Steve. “Please get the hose.” I love Robin and Eddie together whenever I can get them snarking at each other, it’s just so entertaining. 

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

Oh yeah! A good few things. I’m coming back from my writing break and I’m going to be working on the final two fics for my anniversary event, Through The Valley and Devotion.  I also have a Summer Exchange Fic in the works along with starting on my Steddie Big Bang piece that I am also signed up for as an artist, I’m so excited to start them!

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

I think I would just like to add that this blog, this concept is such a wonderful idea, you’re doing great work here to bring people and fics to new eyes and it has been an honor and a privilege to be put forward the way I have, I’m so so so thankful. 🖤

Thank you to our author, @penny00dreadful, and our nominator, @hbyrde36! See more of Penny00Dreadful'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!

[strawberryspence]

on my last hc, i said steddie goes to new zealand for their honeymoon because you can't tell me that eddie's not the kind of guy that would be like "you know where the perfect honeymoon would be? new zealand!" and steve agrees, thinking they're going to see mountains or hot springs or some shit but when they arrive there eddie informs him that he signed them up for the 14 day lord of the rings package tour all over new zealand 😭

when steve finds out, he's speechless and shocked and eddie's giving him the biggest puppy eyes, "are you going to take this away from your husband?!"

when steve finally sighs and agrees, eddie takes out a whole ass costume and gallops to the group 😭

also edit: after the 14 day tour, eddie's so tired, steve has to carry him to the hotel and eddie's babbling incoherent stuff to steve but he does manage to catch "i am so happy. married to my dream guy and i just saw a hobbit-hole." steve rolls his eyes, but atleast the nerd he's married to is really happy and they really were right when they said "happy husband happy life" <3

[moeblob]

Every single time I draw for an anime I think to myself "never again will I draw for an anime" and then I am proven wrong. So here, take my daughter Lulu.

[goldengrecha]

How are we feeling today, people who read pokespe?

[palilious]

"You're alright, Little One. It was just a bad dream" Based on this fic from @starlitangels

[ftcatv]

can you hear me say your name, forever ? can you see me longing for you, forever ? - reference

[pliablehead]

HEDWIG'S LAMENT / EXQUISITE CORPSE • atlanta, 2017

[uselessgaywhovian]

the problem with playing D&D is you have ships 'n' blorbos that only 4 other people know about

[thehappiestgolucky]

I don't know if you're going to answer this but, Vigilante Tiso, is this an AU of yours? If so, I'm curious about the context of this concept!

Yep! Vigilante Tiso is one of my older and blog popular AU’s for Hollow Knight (based on poll results)

Originally, it started as a joke about Tiso being in Hallownest early just to take the piss out of PK and Lurien, but slowly developed into a more complicated story about Tiso being Xero and Markoth’s son (Xero biologically and Markoth via marrying into the family) as Tiso moved to Hallownest much earlier - eventually putting his distaste for the royalty into become the cities Vigilante that continued through the Infection Outbreak and in-game events. Instead of an arrogant ant that dies in the Colosseum, he’s a hot headed ant that’s been trying to protect survivors of a dying kingdom whilst wanting a solution and is willing to die for it.

A lot of it focuses more on the character relationships as they change and are affected by the story events - particularly with a small family being torn apart as simple mortals in a gods war.

[rivilu]

today, I offer some 2 month old Orion scribbles (ft. my chicken scratch handwriting) Tomorrow, who knows 🎉✨

[decepticon-nerd]

Knockout is sexy and I love him but Breakdown is a lovable dumbass and he won my heart when he showed kindness towards the Vehicons in the mines even though it actually ended up being Agent Fowler and the Autobots

[chainsofgoldandash]

A Time and Malon piece requested by my dearest of friends @beydeaks

Loosely inspired by Beyoncé’s “Dance For You” music vid

[boxwinebaddie]

THE NEW PINTEREST BOARDS..??!?!? OMGGGG NINAAA UR SPOILING USS

long live ( literally ) sexy ginger lavish lestat de lioncourt vampire king succubus jersey and also very sexy emo tortured haunted manic panic red virgin scary vampire hunter raven doing down horrendous homoerotic music video things in front of everyone <3 xx MWAH ;)

[wind-chime-system]

Feeling Normal about Dan Feng and Yingxing again.

[bosetsu]

I maybe grumble about Only Murders but I love them so much for having cast full of older or old people. Even younger characters aren't teenager young but are in their twenties