Latest Posts by greenscrunchy - Page 2

❝ not to me. ❞ such a simplistic response couldn't be enough, however — what robin dug for lay deeper. their own town and school system would have them think otherwise in half a heartbeat, for no purpose but....tradition? normalcy? years of being "queen" under her belt and chrissy cunningham had only just begun to ask how much of social status was pure distraction from something far more important. like well-being for example. maybe that's what robin was getting at, too. ❝ people are definitely obsessed with who is worth their time and who isn't because of popularity or some....some crap, and i think that's stupid now. especially now. ❞ chrissy nodded sharply, half to herself, an urging to keep going. ❝ i care a lot less about how people are supposed to see me lately. so i'd rather be friends with good people than rich idiots. besides, i never really got to hang out with you before....everything. now i can. turns out you're pretty cool. ❞

                  “   Are   we   really   that   different—   tell   me   where   you   stand.   ” @greenscrunchy

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                              ( hellmartyr​ )

𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐋𝐀𝐊𝐄 with no intention of coming back. that’s how it felt listening to the violet-grey sadness that slowly flooded his insides with a dreaded sense of déjà vu. like listening to an old recording of his thoughts, spoken out loud in a crunchy, distorted voice. ideas eddie would’ve drowned in if wayne never took him in.

      calloused fingers curled into a loose fist. he had to, to keep from reaching over the barrier to hold her back from going any further. it wouldn’t be the first time they searched for each other in the dark, someone’s fingers feeling for a brush with skin that bore similar scars from the same place. eddie wanted nothing more than to be that reassurance again, but he hesitated. scared that if he moved too fast, whatever ledge chrissy was hanging onto would crumble.

      and who could blame her? not like eddie read her autobiography, but her life wasn’t hard to see when she wasn’t surrounded by faces with herculean expectations. chrissy cunningham’s picture perfect life was the exact reason vecna targeted her. a like a picture, it was a two dimensional facade that didn’t hold up to scrutiny. eddie first noticed tiny holes in his own assumptions when the unorthodox pair sat across from each other at a rickety picnic table. then the road trip when they were both supposed to be healthy … -er. yet sitting next to her for hours on end, chattering away, his dark eyes reflectively slipping from the road to her under an array of lightning. living in a drifter’s version of domesticity as the van hauled them ever closer to california. it was during those hours, destined to be carefree, that eddie learned laura cunningham had no right to be called a mom.

      ed didn’t want to answer. terrified of pushing her any further in a foreboding direction. seeing her eyes like the bottom of a well, unable to tell if it was the light or tears that made them shine. his mouth went cotton dry. ❝ a s-southpaw? ❞

      chris. the plea never cleared eddie’s throat, stuck like a rock in a hard place behind his tongue’s treacherous reply. it took several silent tries to dislodge it. when it did, her name scraped his throat like it grew claws. eddie felt like he was floating, even as the polyester sheets grazed his skin. he’d wanted the quiet to last longer, preferring it to hang over them like distended as he tried to figure out chrissy’s destination to prepare himself to deny their arrival.

      instead eddie cornered himself to think on the fly. panicking in the seconds between his and her respond with race to dredge up every synonym and tidbit he knew about lefties. he knew some people had a religious hang-ups. and it wasn’t too long ago teachers were still allowed to crack a leftie’s hand with a ruler, encouraging them to switch. that’s what wayne said happened to his brother, and that al went home everyday with a teacher’s brand till the bastard finally dropped out of high school.

      thinking of his old man sharing any similarity with chrissy made eddie’s stomach flip. if she was a mess, how fucked was  he ?

truth be told, chrissy had asked the question with no real expectation of an answer. the query was as rhetorical as it was sincerely curious. there was no way of knowing if eddie would catch her drift, especially not with sleep dancing just out of reach in the corners of her bedroom. but, not unlike the first day the two had made real conversation, looking at each other less like classmates and more like friends, eddie munson had so valiantly offered up anything he hoped might be a solution for what ailed her. a habit that became a consistent phenomenon from the previous march, through the last gasps of their school year, over the summer, all the way to the first anniversary of their deaths. or if it wasn’t death, no life had ever felt like swimming through the humidity-choked air of hawkins’ moldy, parasitic mirror, every step seemingly futile. even if the upside down and death couldn’t accomplish the same goal, they left the same scars.

the cheerleader had been all alone in that purgatory, left to suffer the consequences of mere happenstance  —  a not so miraculous resurrection. until eddie munson appeared. at school she’d felt forgotten among the aftermath, the real her with her real twisted limbs and real blank eyes left behind in the rubble. until she saw eddie in the hallway. since then, they’d left each other alone only by necessity. 

of course that’s where eddie’s head was. to assume he’d do anything else but pull her back home with oaths of understanding was honestly stupid. she should have that part of him memorized now, just like everything else he let her see. it’s why she knew the twitching in the valley beyond the pillow mountain was a contained urge to reach for the hand she’d dangled too closely in reach. 

evidently, he wasn’t holding it against her much if the next thing she felt herself do was snort at what might have been a joke.

all the stacks of emotion building a dam in her throat abated in brief as her body shook with silent laughter, no sobs or sniffles in sight. chrissy considered herself the kind of girl who cried regularly, although she never began her night hoping to curl into a ball and gasp her way to the middle of the mattress only to woozily drop off and wake up sore and salty. so, maybe this was a good replacement. even after her worst day in a long while, and that was saying something considering the spring break depression.

her lingering left hand flapped at the wrist just slightly over their all-but-pillow-fort. beyond it somewhere was his, and she aimed to fish it out again in a burst of watery grin-fueled nerve. 

                  ❝ no. i mean - yeah, that is one name for it. but not the one i’m talking about ❞  a deep sigh whistled through chrissy’s nose before her thoughts lined themselves up again in a neat, sensible row. only this way could she make him understand her debt to him and her fear for him. 

finally, softly,  ❝ sinister. ❞  the shape of the word hung in the air like the ghost of a tattered highway billboard, no context left but a single word. yellowed lights and all. if they looked out her tiny bedroom window, they might even see one.  ❝ lefties are sinister. because being left handed means you’re unlucky. or that you’re weak. sometimes both. most of the time, actually. and, that.... ❞  two hard swallows did nothing to help her breath and the harsh sound of chrissy helplessly clearing her throat seemed to shatter what remained of their cocoon.  ❝ that there’s darkness inside. ❞  

it was so easy to imagine when it shouldn’t have been: every lethal critique her mother levied against her, the thousand faults chrissy bore like ill-fitting clothes along with disgusted or jealous glances that cut truer than shattered glass on bare feet, all streaming from eddie’s face, eddie’s eyes, eddie’s mouth. an imagined nightmare questing to outpace the memory of vecna showing her why death was altogether better than the agony of living. 

                   ❝ i just don’t want to be the next person that hurts you, eddie. that’s what i’m scared of. ❞  all the tears she’d been pushing back finally crested the surface of grey ocean eyes, drizzling down her cheeks to splash mutely on an over-squished pillow. between burning droplets she could only offer a pitiful whisper in addendum,  ❝ i don’t want you to hate me. ❞

"suburban intervention" by ian strange

teiknu​:

Goofy movie au with chrissy and eddie

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙏𝙄𝙉𝘼 𝙎𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍𝙎                        ( @tinasparty​ )

greenscrunchy asked: ❝ you start to believe all the things they say. that this place is cursed. ❞   stranger things 4 : accepting !

        TINA  DOESN’T  EVEN  NEED  THE  RUMORS  to  know  there’s  something  wrong  with  hawkins;  she  can  feel  the  darkness  in  the  air,  SENSING  it.  people  go  missing  or  succumb  to  fates  so  nightmarish  it  can’t  be  natural  and  she  notices.  “trust  me…  i  believe  it.  i  believe  everything.”  and  the  reason  tina  knows  too  much  is  because  of  the  visions  conjured  by  her  mind’s  eye,  the  psychic  trait  no  one  knows  about  her.  “and  i  don’t  have  a  good  feeling  about  this…  it’s  not  over  yet,”  she  speaks  cryptically,  though  she  can  tell  chrissy  understands  exactly  what  she’s  trying  to  say.  there’s  none  of  her  typical  flirtation  in  her  smile,  the  charming  attitude  she  carries  herself  with  absent  this  time  as  she  feels  the  weight  of  what  chrissy  says.  it’s  true,  and  there’s  a  wistful  and  almost  melancholic  look  swimming  in  mocha  eyes.  “i’m  just…  so  worried.  about  everyone,  you  know?”  it  haunts  her  late  at  night,  keeping  her  wired  and  even  casting  shadows  and  chilling,  premonitory  scenes  into  her  dreams:  who’s  next?

                  ❝ yeah.... i do know. ❞  hard not to fret when the wheel of hawkins’ internal disaster compass keeps spinning without offering any useful sense of direction and there’s no magnetic field of realistic explanations to keep it grounded. even with all that proof that proves nothing but the worst, chrissy still feels a lump of stress unravel partway when tina needs no additional detail to keep talking. just a hint at what’s been bothering everyone their age lately set her off enough. it means chrissy isn’t alone. 

midway up the bleachers that used to drive chrissy crazy, the ones parked right next to the pathway leading towards the middle school, she’s realizing how useful they are. the breeze seems to whisk away any words they utter too loudly, leaving them safe in their windy little bubble. good, because chrissy doesn’t want everyone in the yard to hear this next part.   

                 ❝ how come it’s just some of us, though, and not the adults? like, this rally we’re supposed to have in a couple weeks. it wasn’t the squad’s idea, or our coach’s, it was principle higgins’. a rally isn’t going to make us feel better when our friends kept dying all summer. i’m ready for it to stop. but instead of being able to do anything we’re just at school. and that’s it. ❞

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           (hellmartyr​)

you do realize you don’t have to do this alone right ? — @greenscrunchy / confrontations

❝ 𝐈’𝐌 𝐍𝐎𝐓, 𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐄. ❞ the dial clicked as eddie tuned to channel 6 before placing the plastic-sheathed walkie in chrissy’s hand, ❝ just, from the comfort of the van. ❞

      his 1970s fossil-guzzling monstrosity was a shabby stand-in for her hi-tech mobile unit cousin. no reinforced chassis, no double-armored moulding, no supercomputers with crash resistant casing. and her engine? oh, her engine, a chain smoking banshee with tuberculosis on speed. yet for all her inorganic flaws, she was an ornery steel heifer who never failed to bulldoze eddie out of a pinch.

      the hollow bumps popped underfoot as eddie manically pranced from one corner to its parallel. he rifled through several pouches before locating a tablet shoved into the abyss of an overstuffed duffel. speakers chirped in greeting as the handheld booted through a logo to the menu. a few taps populated the screen with an empirical application with a plain royal background. the mechanic set the device beside the young woman before tampering with the componentry on the shoulder strap of his vest. twin beady red lights blinked to life on the front and back of his right shoulder. a high definition projection of the van’s insides engulfed the tablet screen, mimicking eddie’s jostling.

      ❝ you can switch views. be the eyes in the back of my head, ❞ indicating the navigational options in the lower corner, ❝ there’s a three centimeter blind spot on either side. not sure it’s darwin award winning, but, uh, something to keep in mind. ❞

      hesitation burned like bile in the gullet. chris wasn’t a meek little fawn ready to drop at the first sign of struggle. there was no questioning her intelligence either. she was leagues beyond his bell curve but even the brightest could be overwhelmed under maddening pressure. and it wasn’t just tasks, he was asking for her to have a hand in his safety. shit was bound to go south, and if it went far enough to t-bone the equator, eddie wasn’t keen on the young woman feeling responsible if he was ripped apart.

      snow compacted with a crunch as ed leapt down from the tail. keys jangled as he slid them towards her foot along with further instructions, ❝ keep the doors locked. fuck it, even it’s me. i knock more than three times, something’s wrong. you get to the wheel and just, ❞ his lip curled inward uncomfortable, hand frozen mid-gesture as eddie considered how request she leave him for dead. he settled on a halted hand-chop and wan smile, ❝ drive. ❞

      eddie was about to seal the doors when an eerie cry humbled the dense night air. his spine jammed into an uneasy curve. nothing moved aside from the motes of snow in the moon’s bleached reflection bouncing off the frozen earth. the low timber carried overhead, slipping through the trees like phantom waves. nerves estranged, eddie fished a pistol from his belt and offered it to her, grip first, ❝ live rounds. safety off. don’t go for the head, aim for the gut. ❞

                  ❝  eddie munson, that’s not what i meant and you know it! don’t leave me in here, ❞  but this was the munson way, to dig his heels in to the point of no return. the mad metalhead had pure concentrated decision writ across his narrow face and it frightened chrissy more than she’d be willing to put to words. at least, not in front of eddie. not when he’d spent so much of his prior time around her ensuring he didn’t fumble his way across all of her tripwires at once. she couldn’t very well tell him that after months of pure care and concern, he was waltzing his way through all of her worst fears like a blindfolded ballerina dancing through a bank vault robbery: being left completely alone in a dangerous place, being left behind in general, being stuck IN THE DARK, being told things were fine when they weren’t, being a person she liked doing something unquestioningly stupid, and the list could have rambled on. 

numb disbelief forced her to watch every sharp movement eddie made while booting up the ranch’s surveillance tablet and syncing it to his shoulder-mounted camera. this wasn’t helping. all chrissy could associate with her bonus eyes was a 360 degree (minus six centimeters) view of all the bad bad bad that was surely waiting for ed out in the blackness. 

                    ❝  great, i can watch you get mauled, ❞  she muttered down at the screen with its heralding rotating ‘SWR’ in the top right corner. mocking her. such a paragon of safety and in its name eddie munson was about to rank-and-file like a tin soldier out into a field of unknowns containing creatures as big as those four-legged star wars machines and worse. at least those armored walkers had no teeth, and the institution both she and eddie worked for dealt with very real quadrupeds that absolutely did. littered with teeth of all kinds, they were, and more deadly than hunks of moving metal.

all the accessories and steps to go with them were supposed to make her feel active in whatever this little expedition was meant to be, but chrissy’s tongue tangled around the truth that it was making it worse. oh so much worse and creating a bigger sense of helplessness than mad-eye munson had set forth to author. but here they were and by the time keys hit the crumbling rubber floormats, she was done.

                   ❝  so i have to sit and wait until something with two legs and two wings knocks on the window?? eddie, you’ve got to be kidding. don’t you dare close that door, don’t you  ——— ❞   exactly then the call of the wild trumpeted its primal prerogative and all words ceased in favor of divining the source and distance away. absolutely impossible within the copse of trees eddie had parked them, but painfully human instinct demanded they try. eddie’s confounding response was to, once more, arm her instead of himself. 

                   ❝  you want me to try and shoot something? ❞  she squeaked.  ❝  nuh-uh, not happening. ❞  the seatbelt pinning her to the faded front seat flew apart, released into god’s hands now. chrissy cunningham would not just be van loitering like a fluffy little duck in a kiddie pool while 1) terrifying monsters circled her without her knowledge and 2) eddie traipsed into the jaws of death without at least a little backup. the matter was settled in her book.  ❝  i’m coming with you before you’re too far into the next clearing and realize maybe four eyes are better than two. okay? ❞  with great haste she gingerly slapped the pistol across the empty seat and back to eddie’s vicinity, all too eager to get it away, away.  ❝  just... don’t make me use that.  ❞

Aren't we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they'll tell us that we make sense?

- Ruby Francisco

#Happy May the 4th to Steve Harrington <3

(in tears) next year i will have so much fun!

Sharp Objects - 1x05 “Closer”

hours into the unclear future, chrissy might catch herself realizing that infinite reasons could exist for pink cheeks and dreamy silences in a packed kitchen hot from crowded bodies guzzling light beer and gossip like air, but in the moment she was only capable of joyously giggling,  ❝ steve, you’re so pink! ❞  a small poke to his cheek came after, followed in quick succession by an exultant gasp and a poke to a nearby eddie’s cheek.  ❝ you both are! ❞

such a sight was inexplicably tickling with a plastic cup of punch or two in her system (never more than that, however  —  playing it safe has become more comforting than boring) that lent a glowing edge to even the harshest of lighting and noises. like all of them were sucked into the kind of classic 80’s film chrissy used to romanticize within an inch of its life. with her shoulder sunk into eddie’s side and halfway beaming at steve, an argument could be made. brat pack, eat your heart out. they didn’t have safe places like she did, to be drawn back to every night like twin homing beacons. they weren’t laughing like she could these days. 

a slow, loose dawning still managed to roll over the former cheerleader, cooling a little of her own halfway inebriation.  ❝ it’s been a while, right? since we had fun like this? ‘cuz it feels good. ❞  

a freak, a jock, & an ex-jock walk into a party....     ///      @firelightfables​ + @starsinshadows​

It was, in fact, not their year at all, but let's ignore that :' )))

curse stranger things and their accidental symbolism

𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓  𝟓 (𝐨𝐫 𝟏𝟎)  𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔  𝐓𝐎  𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄. 

1.    mothers talk   ∕   tears for fears 2.    more than a feeling   ∕   cinematic pop ft. cosette smith (originally by boston) 3.    victoria’s secret   ∕   jax 4.    you picked off all the polish   ∕   UTAH 5.    kids + teens   ∕   kyle dixon & michael stein 6.    fields of coral   ∕   vangelis 7.    gloria   ∕   laura branigan 8.    here i go again   ∕   whitesnake 9.    i cheat the hangman   ∕   the doobie brothers 10.  the end  ∕   the beatles

&  𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓  𝟓  𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔  𝐓𝐎  𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄.

1.     “all parents damage their children. it cannot be helped. youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”   —   mitch albom, the five people you meet in heaven

2.     “i must get my soul back from you; i am killing my flesh without it.”  /  “the silence depressed me. it wasn’t the silence of silence. it was my own silence.”   —   sylvia plath, the unabridged journals / the bell jar 

3.     “i have a strict policy that no one cries alone in my presence.”   —   dolly parton

4.     “when did your childhood end? how badly did you get hurt, when you did, when you were this little, when you were this wee little hurtable thing, nothing but big eyes, a heart, a few hundred words? isn't it wonderful how we never recover?"   —   will eno, thom pain (based on nothing)

5.      In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth  [...]  I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre, The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness, And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away— [...] I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. [...] So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and birth.                                     You say I am repeating Something I have said before. I shall say it again.    —   t.s. eliot, east coker

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲:  @quietresistance  then  @hellmartyr​  xD  love you both dearly

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠: @darkestshadeofgrey or @athousandmilesandcounting or BOTH  /  @manaborn  /  @starsinshadows (steve)  /  @firelightfables (billy or eddie)  /  @knowseverythingaboutyou  /  @vihilum ( tommy or nance! )  /  @dvarapala  /  @shadowedvales  /  @sihnon  /  @sawbcnes  /  @asteritm  /  @masterwcrk  /  @hostica  /  @katesgotabow  /  @wheeling  /  @cleryc  /  @wihlliams  /  @flaeyed​  /  @telekinsis or @barhd  /  @alwaysrevvedup  /  @flayerlinked  /  @partysheart or @rebelcliche  /  @mikewheelertm  /  @temporarywiin (jessica or ashton!)  /  @trashm0uth  /  @finalhorrors​ (stephanie or eddie k.)

𝙸'𝙼 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚈 𝚂𝙰𝚈.

horror multi-muse directed by vox lux.

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​

the air was cold, actually cold in hawkins for december. chrissy could be fooled into thinking that the place where she’d grown up was a place that made sense, where right side up really was the right side, and seasons were as black and white as they were supposed to be. but that illusion couldn’t be anything but fleeting. california fit more like a home for the past five months than hawkins ever had, even though it was fractionally warmer than what she was used to in winter, to the point that the beginning of december hadn’t felt real there until she’d arrived back in hawkins. where all the old, familiar places had shrunk into pitiful, sad imitations of what younger chrissy lived with so willingly.

there was one last place that still managed to make her feel welcome when all else fell through, one place that felt innately warm: the munson stoop. an emphatic middle finger to the blustery chill shooting shards of wracking frigidity through chrissy’s coat. eddie would be proud to know.

he was why she was there in the first place, rocking on her toes after knocking at the door. it had taken a minute to work up enough assurance that this wasn’t a mistake before her knuckles hit metal, but it happened. she knocked. and now she’d wait for the door to open and for just the right greeting to float down from her brain when it did. 

except when it did open, chrissy stalled. 

five long months of nothing but notes and letters and phone calls since summer ended, and there was eddie munson just a few inches away. in the flesh.

                      ❝ hi? ❞  what a way to sound the opposite of confident, but when chrissy meant so much, almost too much, by her announcement-free arrival, it was hard to know what to say first.  ❝ i hope that....   —  oh, forget it. merry christmas, eddie. i thought i’d try to surprise you. ❞

                       SURPRISE! merry christmas, @hellmartyr​ !

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙅𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝘾𝘼 𝙍𝙀𝙀𝘿                       ( temporarywiin​ )

𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒. "oh. my. god." stunned. completely stunned. "the pink panther isn't a lion?"

                    ❝ babe, it’s in his name. it’s a panther. have you ever seen him with a mane?? ❞

ISDUGL ODNGHB YOU CAN PLAY MORE THAN ONE BELL AT THE SAME TIME AND MAKE CHORDS, I’M IN HEAVEN

for everyone’s edification, turn on the bells. i just played “we wish you a merry christmas” three times and i’m NOT STOPPING, IT’S SO MUCH FUN.

for everyone’s edification, turn on the bells. i just played “we wish you a merry christmas” three times and i’m NOT STOPPING, IT’S SO MUCH FUN.

it sucks beyond belief, the tug of war her mind anxiously wages against her body absorbing anything that might remotely help her survive the day without feeling like she will pass out. the peanut butter was supposed to help settle her stomach, not plow across her thoughts like a divining rod of judgment deeming her too delicate to eat without her silhouette tattling and too unworthy of a source of fuel besides tab today. the thought alone makes her feel nauseous again, but another can of it is all she can reach for at school until dinner. just one more setback she has to muscle through, today - one more thing to make her stronger. she hopes. it better.

but the other shoe always drops.

                      ❝ thought i was by myself. ❞  chrissy makes quick work of grabbing toilet paper to make herself decent while contemplating the pros and cons of exiting the stall. had she really been so lost in miserable thought that she’d failed to sense an entire person walking in? hard to call this girl’s presence intrusion when there wasn’t a sign on the door. sorry, i’m puking my guts out, come back later! yeah, right. like that would ever fly. the passing concern is embarrassing enough.  ❝ i don’t need the nurse, it’s fine. my mom just...packed something past the expiration date. ❞  

disloyal knees shake when she stands to reach for the flush, sheltering in the clatter of porcelain and pipes for too-short moments. after that, all bets are off. chrissy inches closer to the stall door but stops with the tip of her nose nearly kissing it, her fingers wobbling over the cold metal latch. it’s a small, grounding mercy.  ❝ it wasn’t cafeteria food. just in case you wondered. ❞

june doesn't know who's in the other bathroom stall. she just knows that the girl is retching up a storm and it sounds absolutely awful. as she exits the stall and washes her hands, the vomiting continues from the stall with the mystery girl inside and she feels her skin crawl. something just doesn't seem right and, while june is not the type to normally care much, she can't help but to feel obligated, "hey, are you okay? do you need the nurse or somethin'?"

@greenscrunchy liked.

i’m the opposite of the grinch. i’m the binch. my heart is two sizes too BIG

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙐𝙍𝙍𝘼𝙔 𝘽𝘼𝙐𝙈𝘼𝙉                           ( congregaticn ​)

@greenscrunchy​​ asked: ❝ i don’t even know how to describe it. i’ve never seen anything like it. ❞    ( murray! )

    - from stranger things s4 starters ( x ). 

    “ Of course, you haven’t seen anything like it. It’s–” He had to stop himself from saying something too aggressive like he normally would. The poor girl looked shaken up as it was. And she was a kid. And the last thing he wanted to deal with was a crying teenager. “It doesn’t want to be seen. More importantly, it’s not even supposed to be here. Crazy how that works, huh?” Still, he leaned forward with his hands folded together, obviously intent on listening to everything the blonde had to say. “Give me as much of a description as you can, yeah? Can’t really help if I got nothing to go off of except ‘ never seen anything like it. ’”

he’s helping. he’s helping. talking to her like she’s made of porcelain and would shatter at a moment’s notice if he said the wrong thing, which chrissy previously thought she’d learned to tolerate but apparently had not after, well....coming back from the dead. new chrissy had vastly different preferences, now. but murray is helping, she repeated, and swallowed down all thoughts of clinical insanity and tried to begin someplace concrete.

                    ❝ imagine the biggest spider you’ve ever seen. ❞  nope, still insane. all the indecision between giving a full confession and sounding less like she had a thousand screws rattling loose inside her head made for too much internal competition, too big for her skull. chrissy shook her head almost violently trying to wipe the distraction away.  ❝ a huge spider, but with a head that could almost be human? except it was just wrong enough not to be human. and it didn’t have eight legs. i think it was five....or six. ❞  just the foggiest recollection made her shiver with dread again and curl into herself.  ❝ i thought i might see vecna again...but not this. ❞

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝘽𝙍𝙄𝘿𝙂𝙀𝙏 𝘾𝙇𝘼𝙍𝙆𝙀                           ( @tempesttragedy​ )

@greenscrunchy gets Bridget from this starter call!

“Hey!” Bridget jogs through the downpour, shielded from rain droplets by a near-pristine condition umbrella. It certainly beats being without, but as she approaches Chrissy under the small ledge from which rain dripped, her arm extends, offering protection from the elements.  “Do you need a ride out of here? Or an umbrella escort, at least?” 

she’s somewhere else again. not the real world, or the “upside down” as chrissy now knows to call it, but another place. still red, just deeper. a void with walls like a crack in space-time itself, lit constantly with formless lightning strikes that cracked the sky apart more viciously than nature could dream of. the ground seemed to undulate beneath her shoes no matter where she tread. worse, it seemed to rise to meet her, swirling into tentacle shapes meant to trap her and  —

a shout loud enough to be from nowhere except reality pulls her from the gridlock into a land of lightning and thunder and wet. another thunderclap follows the voice and startles chrissy nearly off the curb. today really was the day she’d decided to take a walk from home to town and back without bringing her raincoat. 

                           ❝ oh, thank you!  ❞  it’s quick work to duck under the offered shelter where the rewards are immediate. rain still splashes her shoes but to have the rest of her out of the deluge is ideal. the generous umbrella bearer is a girl who looks just a little older than chrissy, with a face that isn’t a strangers yet isn’t so familiar to have a name attached.  ❝ what a great day to take a walk! i don’t live that far off main street, but maybe the rain will slow down soon. ❞  

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙈𝙄𝙉𝘿𝙔 𝙃𝘼𝙂𝘼𝙉                          (cheerleadcr​)

@greenscrunchy​​​ liked this post!

❛ The team here is genuinely so much better than it was in Milford. I mean, like, seriously we never had boys cheering with us there! Plus, it’s way bigger here too. I thought going from one small town to another meant things wouldn’t be too different but, guess I was wrong. ❜

                         ❝ that’s really cool of you to say. ❞  and high compliments from another girl who looked like she lived and breathed the sport as much as chrissy did.  ❝ our guys are awesome! we can do so many more formations and routines with them here. but i’m proud of our whole team. ❞  the strawberry blonde couldn’t help but stand up a little straighter with preening glee.  ❝ they work super hard, and it shows. have you been able to meet most of them yet? you’ve probably met our coach already, right? i know it’s a lot so soon. ❞

here’s your “wow, what the hell, jason” for today:  there are multiple guys on the hawkins cheer squad, and like all cheer guys they play a really big part in building the strength of the squad - which we see in the pep rally when they’re assisting with lifts. jason, during his rousing “we’ll win for the dead people” speech, only draws attention to the girls on the squad.