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* There are now over 10k Steddie fics on Ao3. And I've only found 8 works worth bookmarking so far. There are good fics out there somewhere... somewhere...
* I've been stuck on one of my own fics and need to switch gears for a bit so I can get stuff done. I have so much to write and days keep on ending and starting even though I'm not ready for the next day yet. Very inconsiderate.
* I walked to the farther grocery store and got a while bunch of items and snacks I can't get at the nearer ones. I may have killed a bag of some sort of vegan cheezy oniony pretzel braids I found. My diet has so little variety sometimes that having any can be so good.
* I didn't wind up going to RCCC on Sunday. I could have gone for the last few hours, but the last few hours of cons tend to be sad and most artists try to leave early if they show on Sunday at all. People tend to front load their spending at cons and also if artists leave at the same time as vendors/exhibitors it can add several hours to their day. So, didn't see worth it.
* We have had some rain, blessed rain. Air still not good, but still... raaaaain.
* I've been stuck on one of my own fics and need to switch gears for a bit so I can get stuff done. I have so much to write and days keep on ending and starting even though I'm not ready for the next day yet. Very inconsiderate.
* I walked to the farther grocery store and got a while bunch of items and snacks I can't get at the nearer ones. I may have killed a bag of some sort of vegan cheezy oniony pretzel braids I found. My diet has so little variety sometimes that having any can be so good.
* I didn't wind up going to RCCC on Sunday. I could have gone for the last few hours, but the last few hours of cons tend to be sad and most artists try to leave early if they show on Sunday at all. People tend to front load their spending at cons and also if artists leave at the same time as vendors/exhibitors it can add several hours to their day. So, didn't see worth it.
* We have had some rain, blessed rain. Air still not good, but still... raaaaain.
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Date: 2022-09-14 03:27 am (UTC)From:With 10k fics there have to be good ones! Right?!
days keep on ending and starting even though I'm not ready for the next day yet. Very inconsiderate. For real! It's ridiculous how this just keeps happening!
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Date: 2022-09-14 08:30 am (UTC)From:Someone pointed out that Steve looks like the sunshine one, but is actually the grumpy one. Eddie looks like the grumpy one and is actually the sunshine one and yeah, that's them :)
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Date: 2022-09-15 04:04 am (UTC)From:But oof, yeah, while I'm no stranger to canon tanking a headcanon based on early interpretations, that's one I... just can't get. I knew too many nerdy stoners and dealers in high school (admittedly decades later) to think that "hah, he sells some weed and maybe some pills" is at all equal to "therefore he's obviously a serious addict."
Idk, it's fine if that's a story someone wants to write, but can't say that'd be my cup of tea at all.
That's a good point, re: the characterization vs. appearances. Eddie DOES look like he should be the edgy grumpy one, and Steve should be the popular upbeat one, and yet... not at all, haha. I love that for them, lol.
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Date: 2022-09-15 11:37 am (UTC)From:It's like, have fun but you've got some serious character drift into a specific kind of woobie going on there.
And yeah, they have such an amusing duality there.
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Date: 2022-09-16 05:14 am (UTC)From:Buuuuut... yeah, I just don't see that characterization really working with canon. He very clearly keeps track of an awful lot, and has the skill and recall necessary to do several hobbies well. He also does, like you said, deal with serious shit going down (supernatural and mundane) without retreating into substance use, which means that can't be THAT much of a go-to.
I could see some sort of struggle with moderation being a workable character choice for him, but full-on addict? Nah. That's some real strong character drift, and does seem to be a specific kind of woobie-fication, trying to fit him into a specific character type that he just... isn't.
That duality might be what draws me to the ship, thinking on it. I love that shit.
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Date: 2022-09-16 11:57 pm (UTC)From:I really need to go a write up of both characters to keep myself on track, and also my headcanons.
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Date: 2022-09-23 04:05 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 06:04 am (UTC)From:Yeah, that is exactly why I need to do a write up. I need to get other people's drift out of my head.
It's funny because a chunk of fandom is fixated on Robin being touch-adverse because she doesn't touch people and another chunk is fixated on the idea that Steve and Robin are overwhelmingly affectionate. Also, so many canon-free takes... so much projection...
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Date: 2022-09-24 04:07 am (UTC)From:Good Omens fandom, I am looking at you very hard right now.Like... I'm super open to and okay with various interpretations. And headcanons can be super fun, and part of the enjoyment of fandom can be the different ways that limited canon information can be extrapolated into very different pathways. A well-written meta or super engaging fic can do a lot to sell me on an idea, at least enough to entertain it as a thought, regardless of whether I think it truly fits canon. And far be it from me to tell someone they can't project on their blorbo of the week... but sometimes I just don't get how people arrive at the ideas they do, lmao.
Far worse when it gets crystalized into the fandom as a whole.
Like some particular Leverage takes I don't like.no subject
Date: 2022-09-24 06:43 am (UTC)From:Last night I left a Stranger Things server that seemed good at first, but people were explaining that not accepting that Steve, Robin and Eddie are 'the autistic three' was literally abusive. It's like... I can counter this or I can leave. Which seems like a better life choice?
I get that projection can feel good, but there is a tipping point where the character is more like a ferret on a sugar high or a literal infant than an adult human.
I don't know what's going on in GO fandom, but LOTR always jumps to mind with character drift problems and also people remembering the plot 100% wrong.
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Date: 2022-09-25 03:55 am (UTC)From:And unfortunately, a lot of people are prone to crossing that line, because of the way they've projected on a character, or created a headcanon to make a favorite character more like them... It creates a sort of overinvestment and someone disagreeing gets interpreted as rejection of them themselves, and it's a mess.
Ugh, yeah, I'd bounce on that. "Literally abusive", fuck off. I realize that people can just SAY shit like that, and just because someone says it loudly doesn't mean that most people agree, but those takes would probably chase me out, for sure.
And yeah, there's the point where headcanons/interpretations/etc become wild caricatures (ferrets on a sugarhigh), and I HATE it. Like... please let this character still be a PERSON, not whatever weird singular trait you've decided "IS" them? I don't mean to yuck anyone's yum or whatever, I just wish they'd have the same courtesy, y'know?
LOTR has a shocking number of people who somehow seem to remember there being a big "triumph over temptation, and Frodo throws the ring into the volcano" moment, and I do not know why.
GO feels like it has an overabundance of super-fluffification of the main two characters. The whole conceit of book and show is summed up in one of the last lines, which talks about how the whole saving-the-world thing worked because deep down the demon is a bit of a good person and the angel is just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. The whole POINT is complexity, and instead they both get flattened down into supper fluffy perfect never-did-anything-wrong-ever woobies. And sometimes it's fine, and it feels like a fair exploration of characters finally given a chance to have a happy ending... but a lot of time the proliferation of "soft" interpretations of the characters has taken over any resemblance to the canon characters. (IMO at least.)
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Date: 2022-09-25 11:52 am (UTC)From:Someone really needs to make a canon with a character like the sugar high ferret so many people seem to want and see what happens.
Yup, people get a main plot point of the book wrong constantly. Also, 'Not all who wander are lost' is a fun one. Most fans do not correctly know who said it or about whom, even people with it as a shirt, bumper sticker or even tattoo. gg, guys
I mostly only go GO fandom from the art. I can see how that gets weird. Fandom does seem to fluffify people in uwu soft boys. The weird thing is, with Steddie they are pretty sensitive and caring and ... kinda soft boys? But it's complicated and they are messed up about it. Eddie's got his spiky armor, but he knows who he is and is very open to those who get underneath. Steve is just a mess who doesn't what he is.
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Date: 2022-09-26 02:46 am (UTC)From:And in general the way that spaces like twitter reward vitriol, and being performatively angry and extreme ("DISAGREEING WITH MY HEADCANON IS LITERAL ABUSE") is its own form of cred.
I can only imagine how much whining there'd suddenly be about how annoying the ferret on speed character is. Lol. I DO feel like it could be interesting to see a canon made up of character archetypes that are generally just weird fanon interpretations. Since fandom seems to want to morph a lot of characters into these repeated fanon versions, what will they do when that IS the canon characterization? An experiment, lol.
Oh geez, the number of people who misquote the poem is pretty damn high, or yeah, assume that obviously that's something Gandalf said about... mutter mutter mutter... If you're willing to commit to a tattoo of a rad quote... maybe at least know the correct context, lmao.
Good Omens has a lot of great art and a lot of great fic, just... a few overly-popular interpretations that I get tired of. And I *like* soft characters, or characters who get to learn to express that softness (especially for a partner!) I adore that shit! But I adore it within the context of the character, where it works WITH the edges and spikes and armor that they have, not... sands them down into nothing. The enjoyment for me comes from that contrast.
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Date: 2022-09-26 11:44 am (UTC)From:Yeah, there is a definite irony in the fact that a canon character who conforms to popular fanon tropes would be hated and considered problematic. There is something about looking at a well rounded character and insisting there is no difference between them and a ferret whose been at PCP laced pixie stix that works for some people.
If blorbo was actually how some people describe him, everyone would hate him.
Softness can be good, but not if it means turning everyone into a weird blob of mush. It's nice when the softness/openness is meaningful.
I honestly don't know how Steve and Eddie are actually written most of the time. So I don't know if the discord conversations are anything to go by. I usually nope out of fics before I get to seeing what the characters are like. But, based on a quick glance of the most recently posted fics, the quality level is going up. It's not longer a mess of 'I wrote this is notasapp lololol dont roast plx' type summaries. Only one was lacking an understanding of capitalization. I might try finding good fics in the wild again, instead of just seeing if gala_apples has written more. I really do want to read more, but... yeah it's a jungle.
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Date: 2022-09-27 03:34 am (UTC)From:But that's very much the case - the sanest, best-behaved, chillest members of a fandom bounce out of spaces when they get drama-rific, which leads to most spaces being taken over by the dramamongers. It makes it hard to FIND those chiller spaces, unless you are willing to create and maintain them yourself, but that turns into a lot of work when you DO have to be the one to push back against people starting shit.
Yeah, I don't claim to get it... but judging by how frequently it happens, there's SOMETHING about flattening characters down to one or two extreme fanon traits that works for a lot of people. But I do feel like a canon clone of fanon blorbo would get a very different reception, lol.
I'm all about softness and the process of nurturing and earning it. But that's exactly it - I want it to MEAN something, not just be "oh, the character was all mush all along with absolutely no pokey bits."
I hope that the average quality of the fic has improved as the ship has gotten more popular. At the very least I'm encouraged that the summaries have improved! I hope you are able to find some more actually good fic for the pairing. There's GOT to be more good fic! Has to be!
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Date: 2022-09-27 10:52 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 11:50 pm (UTC)From:I've actually seen a lot MORE for the ship recently. That's just in terms of who I follow on tumblr and such, but I haven't followed *anyone* for Stranger Things specifically, but four or five people I follow have been posting Steddie content recently, and at least two of those are quite recent converts. So it's clearly got SOME momentum still.
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Date: 2022-09-28 05:18 am (UTC)From:... I probably am going to make a DA comm this weekend just to have an index of resources like the trailer walk-through, the zillow listing for Steve's house and also recc lists. I have posted some stuff to the reccing comm on DW, but I really prefer allowing self-reccing. It feels overly puritanical to only be allowed to promote other people... especially since I know people who literally ask to be recced those places as a 'pick me up' when they've had a bad day. I think back in the age of El Jay being the biggest social media site there was some logic behind self-reccing being the devil, especially mods, but like 'posting pics over 300 px is abusing poor people' that's just a weird old thing fandom needed to get go of over a decade ago.
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Date: 2022-09-29 04:11 am (UTC)From:Having the stored resources would be useful!
I feel similarly about self-reccing. It feels like a pretty archaic rule these days! (Every once in a while I still see comms with "no images over x-size, and no more than one thumbnailed pic above a cut" and it gives me flashbacks.)
I feel like it can be reasonable to limit how many self-reccs someone can make in a week or whatever (because there are people who can go overboard with self-promo to the point it becomes spam), but banning self-reccs entirely does seem really unfair, and tbh I think the spammer types are pretty rare.
It's rough when you don't have someone to recc your work, almost especially when you're in a comm with people who could genuinely be interested in your work, yet you're forbidden from sharing it! And if I'm in a comm dedicated to a show or a ship, then I probably *want* to see the content fellow members make, not have them feel like they aren't allowed to share it.
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Date: 2022-09-29 05:44 am (UTC)From:One of my comms and Historium had a big spam problem from self-promo for a while. At one point about 75% of two comms was all the same person self-reccing. Maybe I should put a guideline in. I like to be rules-light, esp since people can be so shy to post anyway, but I might do something.
Certain people always just get around 'no self reccing' anyway. It's a mess all around.
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Date: 2022-09-30 03:24 am (UTC)From:I have seen really over-the-top spam promotion. It's maybe a bit paradoxical, but I feel like having a rule for what's "too much" might actually encourage some people to share. Some people see that there's no rule against it, or even "self-reccs are allowed" and still think "...probably not for me, though" because they are worried about seeming spammy. But if you define what IS too much, it may be easier for some people to feel like they're not in danger of crossing that line. (Because I completely get what you mean - it's hard enough to get people to post as it is.)
And yes - lots of people have socks, or will trade reccs with a friend (which isn't NOT allowed, but is an easy way to work around it), or just have a different username from one site to another and trust no one to know it's a self-recc.
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Date: 2022-09-30 07:17 am (UTC)From:I could complain that I am bad at e-begging, but maybe it's just that I don't hang out with the sort of people who'd put up with that sort of shit :)
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Date: 2022-10-01 03:19 am (UTC)From:I'm apparently also terrible at e-begging, but I think I'll choose to think the same: I've curated my online experience well enough that it's not a norm in any of my spaces!
And anyway, I'd 100% rather have someone ask me to read their fic than ask someone else to tell me to read their fic, lol.