Take Some Sage And Pass It Around, Fam.

𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼 𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ'𝕊 𝕄𝕀𝕏𝕋𝔸ℙ𝔼  X  𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒸𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓎   ( @hellmartyr​ )

i just want you to know who i am ( iris - goo goo dolls )  /  chase the water racing from the sky ( under a glass moon - dream theater )  /  i can tell that you notice all the things i keep down ( free them - one ok rock )  /  city in the rearview and nothing in the distance ( next in line - walk the moon )  /  i promise that i’ll never let you feel alone ( won’t go - snuffles )  /  tell me your love is still only mine ( eddie my love - the chordettes )

𝙏𝘼𝙂 𝙋𝙀𝙊𝙋𝙇𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝙒𝘼𝙉𝙏 𝙏𝙊 𝙂𝙀𝙏 𝙏𝙊 𝙆𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝘽𝙀𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍! repost don’t reblog.

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑(𝐒): grey, blue, black

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑(𝐒):  strawberry raspberry and peach, although i do love a really solid warm spice. in general i’m more of a savory person so i love deep, warm and spicy flavors

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄(𝐒): historical fiction, science fiction, psychological horror, biographical, mystery and intrigue, and any franken-combo of all of those together

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂: game and film soundtracks, lofi, electronic, electroswing, metal, rock, alternative, etc. td;lr i listen to a whole spectrum of genres, although these are the heavy hitters 

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄(𝐒): all the star wars films, pacific rim, the cabin in the woods, pride and prejudice

𝐅𝐀𝐕 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒: all star wars things ever (that’s a series of things, right?), redwall, chronicles of narnia, stranger things, game of thrones, and lord of the rings

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆: discovery of kou wo oikakete interrupted my listen of CONFIG.SYS

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒: the last tv series i finished was stranger things. before that was the mandalorian, the book of boba fett, kenobi, and the clone wars. although technically i’m never finished with stranger things and i’m never finished with star wars. a few months ago i finished the jurassic park novels and loved them.

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄: ??? uhh......i think it might have been jurassic world: dominion! i rarely watch movies these days so i’m an embarrassment in this area 

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆: churchill by andrew roberts / churchill by martin gilbert, d-day by stephen e. ambrose, a house at the bottom of a lake by josh malerman, the bloody chamber by angela carter, the bear and the nightingale by katherine arden, suspicious minds by gwenda bond, lucas on the line by suyi davies okungbowa, a game of thrones / a storm of swords by grrm (rereads heheh), mistress of the art of death by ariana franklin, attack of the clones by r. a. salvatore, the silmarillion by tolkien & and a buuuunch of textbooks for verse and novel research purposes dklfjghdfjg SHHHHHHHHHHHHH

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆: over the garden wall, tales of the jedi, and game of thrones. i am also watching my to-be-watched list go steadily up :/

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐍: drafts across blogs, my novels, and staying sane!

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲: sweet @sailento​  and @alwaysrevvedup​! thank you aila and graves!

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠: @shadowedvales  /  @inimikal  /  @lenorest  /  @vihilum​  /  @sainterror​  /  @finalhorrors  /  @congregaticn  /  @dvarapala  /  @allattonce  /  @familybyerstm  /  @schmakin​  /  @blueminke​  /  @strcngergirls​  -  no pressure to fill all this out, but i absolutely love getting to know my dash better :3​

they should never put this in the kitchen, chrissy thought through her hazy bubble cloud of wine cooler and winter break-fueled good mood. it was almost a languid sort of cheer that had hit her this late in the evening; she rarely stayed this late at parties but the smiles in every direction passively persuaded her to let the night drag on further and further until everyone would inevitably become a half-drunk and sleepy mess of laughter and jokes that never quite landed yet sounded hilarious regardless. but she’d forgotten about the trademark seasonal trap the party host had hung in a kitchen entryway, beyond which the siren song of a sofa crooned chrissy’s name. ....right - she’d been meaning to watch out for the mistletoe earlier. and missed her cue to glance up before nearly sliding past nancy right under it — until she noticed nancy’s movement grind to a halt, too. stupid little plant thing.

before her already alcohol-pinked cheeks could bloom any darker, chrissy giggled with all the air she had left in her lungs. oh, this would be easy, actually. no problems here.

                          ❝ oops, i guess! merry christmas break, nancy. ❞  there was no needing to think her plan through twice before swinging an arm about nancy’s shoulders and giving her a smack square on the cheek. perfect.  ❝ that counts, right? since we’re under here, i think we should make the rules. ❞  

                    —     a      🌿     for    @rebelcliche​

parent-child dynamics are soooo crazy. i love you i resent you i can't stand you i adore you i pity you. and still watching your hair get a little more grey every time i see you makes my stomach feel weird

𝚢𝚘𝚞    𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎    𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝    ,     𝚒     𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜    𝚖𝚢    𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎    𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗    𝚝𝚑𝚎    𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜    𝚘𝚏    𝚊    𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔    𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎    𝚊    𝐷𝐴𝐹𝐹𝑂𝐷𝐼𝐿     .      𝚋𝚞𝚝    𝚑𝚘𝚠    𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍    𝚒𝚝    𝔤𝔯𝔬𝔴     𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎    𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎    ?

#   𝙵𝙾𝙶𝙴𝙻𝚂   .     a  writing  blog  horror - based  original  character    𝐝𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐥  𝐟𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬   ,     currently  based  in  stranger  things  .    created  by  annie  .

game day thrills came and faded all too quickly. sometimes it didn’t matter what rung of the championship ladder hawkins was on (or falling off), the whole school was filled with high voltage anticipation bordering on deadly. from the knife’s edge of the inner circle, chrissy watched as weeks leading up to important games spawn everything from handmade spirit shirts to garish posters on walls and on lockers, even culminating in creative little chants some students would come up with to shout during the game itself. never mind that there was an entire troupe of girls created for such a purpose. nevertheless something about their enthusiasm did rouse a consistent smile from chrissy — and assured her that her significantly softer cheers might go unnoticed.

when the day itself finally dawned, until the gym began filling “game day” mostly meant rushing to and from extra routine run-throughs and a day of wearing the uniform. the former was more enjoyable than annoying, and the latter was so non-negotiable that chrissy nearly abandoned feeling any way at all. she’d borderline coveted the sleek look all through middle school as if mere cloth had the power to change her life, the elegantly embroidered swoops of her name on a sweater heralding a new era of chrissy cunningham at her best and brightest. for the first few weeks of high school cheer, those dreams seemed almost corporeal. then she learned how often her bare legs would sprout goosebumps when someone’s eyes lingered too long. it took a year, but she’d successfully trained herself out of tugging at the hem after nearly pulling it off completely. 

almost worse than her self-consciousness was how jason seemed to earn his badge of “tiger” on those days, prowling around with narrowed eyes in chrissy’s wake just in case someone looked at her wrong. but there was a solution for that; sitting with jason at lunch eased his high hackles enough that he could be borderline pleasant in the hallways. in that regard the boys’ table, infinitely worse in its volleys of conversation than her squad’s, was a well-met sacrifice.

now the quarter final was upon the hawkins tigers and the high school buzzed like a provoked nest of hornets. the seniors were down one player in steve harrington, still recovering from a beating of comic book proportions, yet their “winner’s spirits” remained high and their thirst for the proverbial blood of their opponents was….interesting. the kind of make-it-or-break-it intense only high school basketball players were capable of, chrissy hoped.

the moment came at last for the levy to break and a stream of green and orange to joyously spill across the basketball court like a prairie sunset in summer. pompoms flew, legs kicked, and for the entirety of their opening routine chrissy let the blood in her veins scream to the beat of the hawkins band. gosh, was she proud of her squad. and in the middle of choreographed melee, proud of herself, too. her flier sequences were only getting tighter with each practice. while her timing had never been sloppy, the feeling of becoming one with the squad pulled her from the void of her self assurance for precious minutes at a time. 

but, as always, all that pep never lasted long enough and before chrissy knew it she was on her knees at the edge of court with the rest of the girls. normally she'd people watch while trying to keep a closely tracked eye on squeaky-shoed boys as they hopped from one end of the room to another. except her curiosity had pinned itself to a very bruised, very benched harrington. the hair was only a fraction less meticulous in its typical sculpt and his rainbow of wounds announced through a spectrum of purples and greens that they were at least healing. he just looked so tired. the kind of exhaustion that couldn’t be remedied, only pushed through. 

barely ten minutes had passed before chrissy could no longer stomach the sight. under cover of a set of free throws for the away team, she squirreled her way from the middle of the squad lineup toward the bench, only almost tripping over someone’s fingers and toes one time each. 

once at steve’s side she wasted enough time waffling over how firmly to tap him on the shoulder that the game had resumed in earnest. so, she gingerly poked him in the arm while trying to speak against the din. 

                            ❝ um, steve? are you sure you’re okay? you don’t look li — ❞  students erupted as hawkins snatched the ball and made a dash toward their hoop. chrissy dutifully wiggled her pompoms ‘til the action moved once more toward center court.  ❝ —  i mean i was just wondering, is it too loud? ❞

                                   a note for @starsinshadows​’ steve harrington

chrissy had paced the boundary of the football field for twenty solid minutes before feeling any modicum less like crawling out of her skin and leaving it behind on the turf. it would take more than twenty minutes or a half hour or hour or the rest of the semester to make any sort of harmony with the disastrous state of affairs back at school, but that was ticking time chrissy did not have. 

                            we’re so sorry, chrissy. you must miss him so much. 

a surge of petulance rattled so fiercely in her gut that chrissy kicked at a clump of damp soil and grass hard enough to send it flying, nearly sending her sneaker with it. 

                            it must be so difficult. i always envied you two.

yes, shedding her skin sounded perfect. she would leave behind the deflated organ like a trash liner, right there at the edge of the football field. someone would find it and scream in terror that “chrissy cunningham’s dead again!” and run away or even faint dramatically on the spot. but there would be no body, only the ghoulish sausage casing polite company called flesh. chrissy could walk away from the smiles that wobbled and wavered, the lips that gloss never stuck to, the cracked and dehydrated nail beds she had to mask religiously with stinging nail polish. off she’d go, nothing but muscles and tendons and trailing blood like bread crumbs, a devil straight from a nightmare. her mother would open the door in horror and chrissy would demand an answer. what about now, mom? will i fit in the dress now?

                            just the perfect hawkins couple.

❝ your boyfriend was adamant that you wouldn’t have gone to someone like young mr. munson for help if you were afraid. ❞  

hhmph. jason was more wrong than he knew.

❝ it’s what he wanted people to think. ❞ a hard blink; her lashes felt light without mascara.   ❝ ....and where is jason now? ❞  there had been a strange lack of visits from him - or information about him, which was arguably preferable to a visit. chrissy didn’t want to watch while jason pointedly looked away from her bruised eyes and joints and wrist and knee braces. she could see it now, his bald discomfort with her appearance, not so doll-like anymore. not head cheerleader material, looking like that, her mother had already spewed to an attending nurse when she thought her daughter couldn’t hear.  

chief powell swallowed and glanced away. avoiding. chrissy froze.

❝ ch - chief powell? ❞  

❝ i’m sorry, ms. cunningham. ❞  his posture had noticeably shifted as if a load were suddenly dropped upon his shoulders.  ❝ we found your boyfriend beside a fault line. it’s likely that jason was killed during the earthquake. ❞  

❝ .....oh.... ❞

then he isn’t my boyfriend anymore, is he?

                            it seemed like jason really loved you.

                            don’t you think it’s weird hanging with the freak after your boyfriend died?

                            you’re friends with the hellfire weirdos? what the shit, chrissy, since when?

that was it. she couldn’t hold in the storm a moment longer. 

with an unusually savage cry, chrissy unloaded every iota of frustration on an unlucky blocking sled the football team had left out along the touchline. she felt the drag of an angry yelp as it flew out of her throat. again and again and again. the pull of muscle was refreshing and nauseating in turns. a kick for every stupid comment she’d heard since resuming classes. a pitiful grunt for every time she let the cheer squad, her friends, every oblivious classmate at hawkins high believe a lie about her. another, harder grit of her teeth for every time she didn’t do a thing to make anyone assume otherwise, too petrified to admit to herself just how miserable she truly was. 

now, chrissy cunninham was paying for her stepford bullshit and plastic smiles along chewing gum-stuccoed hallways. a perfect picture never meant to last. everything she was told to work for, gone.

four oil painted smiles flashed across her mind’s eye, each one more painfully frozen than the last. on the left, the girl in pink’s eyes started to bleed.

                          freak, freak, chrissy, you’re a freak! 

her shoe flew in one more perfect arc, a final blazing strike for good measure.  ❝ UGH!! ❞  

“looks like it’s absolutely necessary.”       /      @tempesttragedy​‘s veronica sawyer

sounds of exertion pivoted from growls to a terrified squeak. that whole performance had been witnessed. oh god, oh god.  chrissy waited, all tension and electricity, for the derision or the utter shock and horror, but none came. instead, all she saw upon turning was an almost.....blasé pair of eyes.

                  ❝ o-h......um. yeah. ❞  dainty wrist shaking with adrenaline, chrissy tried to dab at her forehead with any elegance she had left. halfway through the motion she gave up, a regretful grin taking the worry’s place.  ❝ kind of. it got built up....over a while.  ❞

Mothers Talk - Tears For Fears

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                              ( alwaysrevvedup​ )

“I love the smell of autumn.” @greenscrunchy

This admission, as small and inconsequential as it is, causes a small smile to unfurl on his features. Chrissy’s expression is so earnest, eyes agleam with an undampened enthusiasm. It’s difficult to not be endeared by it, and Eddie certainly isn’t fighting against being endeared. 

“Yeah? Me too. It’s…practically my favorite time of year.” There’s a hint of awkward shyness skirting around the words, and he breaks gaze with Chrissy for a moment, looking ahead as they walk through the woods. “There’s that crisp, dampness that hangs in the air and the smell of the fallen pine needles and how…” Dark eyes turn upward at the canopy of branches laden with colorful leaves overhead, “how the trees almost look like they’re painted with fire.” 

an array of woodland confetti crunched underfoot, the symphonic chaos of the season in full effect beneath two sets of shoes. it really was the perfect time of year; time for hooded sweatshirts and bonfires and long walks and staying outside far, far from the stale, concrete-stiff air of her house. and time, as it turned out, for getting to know eddie munson. 

chrissy had yet to put a sure finger on why she wasn’t waiting to jump out of her skin around him. but once over the hurdle over her own mental guardrails, there’s a distinct, unexpected air of confidence and....compassion? left in his wake. mixtures of sweet, dry air and eddie’s carefree grins made breathing easy. wow, who knew?  ❝ you make everything sound like it’s from a fairytale. ❞  as if there was magic in even the most mundane of hawkins details. another addition to the list of surprises she wouldn’t have associated with the resident hawkins high wild child.  ❝ i dunno that i’d have ever thought of the trees that way.... ❞  obviously chrissy needed to look up more and started almost immediately by burying her focus in the kaleidoscope of genuinely fiery colors above her head.  ❝ yeah. yeah! the branches do look a little like they’re burning! or like someone in theater threw way too much paint around. it’s really pretty, though. ❞