SOMEWHERE BETWEEN DUSK AND DAWN I LEFT THE CHILD I WAS BEHIND, WITH ALL HER HOPES AND DREAMS AT HER SIDE

Send 🌿 to accidentally get caught under the mistletoe with my muse.

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ 𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼 𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                               (hellmartyr​)

𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃-𝐒𝐎𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐀𝐘. three bodies fished from the east end of the bay were breaking news on every local station. each of the gruesome trio were in varying stages of decomposition, alluding to an unspeakable verdict that the beautiful berkeley-oakland shoreline had been a dumping ground for some time. images of police boats, thick-bodied men in wetsuits, and figures cocooned in white shrouds looped the screen as a done-up broadcaster delivered a sobering report in vivacious fuchsia lipstick. kgo’s on-site reporter was interviewing the most hang ten looking dude. he wore a white crop top with pismo beach airbrushed across a muted neon sunset, homebrew cut-offs, and imported havaianas. teal clubmasters pinned back his fluffy blond fringe. the carefree nature of his taste failed to belay the anxiety clearly etched on his tanned face. one of his arms was wrapped protectively around the shoulders of a distraught brunette fastened close to his side.

      ❝ we got another night stalker on our hands, ❝ an unvarnished mix of mission brogue and inland drawl crumbled into the mic, ❝ who’s protecting the girls in this town, you know? like, were they students? sucks, man. it really does. say bye to your mom and dad, come out here to the california dream, pay all this tuition, then get butchered and dumped like your dreams meant nothing. who thinks they got the right to do this, you know? it’s scary. who’s gonna protect these girls? ❞

      the reporter’s response was robustly flaccid. she was there for the ratings game. she lived somewhere safe like albany or palo alto, seemingly out of a killer’s reach.

      ❝ it’s just awful, ❞ the woman beside the surfer boy whimpered as the mic was unceremoniously dropped into her face. fingers painted tulip pink cupped around her mouth to hide her grisly expression of heartbreak. her voice, so lost in the croak of sobbing, nearly drowned in the howl of onshore wind.

      leaned over a counter not too far from where the interview took place was eddie, fingers intertwined in a pensive barrier as tragedy once again surrounded him. the interviewer, the interviewees, the human wall that collected around them protectively, the police, the bay area denizens — they’d all believe this was done by a man. a man with his wires crossed. one who only formed a connection with someone when he watched the light fade from their eyes.

      chances are they were right. the capacity for great evil rested with mankind. and the atrocities didn’t stop at the boundaries of reality. spring of last year proved there was more to human wickedness than loose screws scattered on the floor. the unfathomable was real, organic, breeding and feeding off happily boring lives. its intentions ran deeper than cruelty, illness, or a maddening cocktail of two.

      that night in wayne’s trailer was a floodgate. the laws of nature were placebo and the truth was far more frightening than anything fantasy could conjure. vecna was real. angry red reminders across his abdomen and jaw evoked how much closer humanity was to hell than heaven. he was no leviathan in the sea or ancient being tethered to a shell, but a mortal man who wanted the world to burn the inside out. and if that was truth, what other unspeakable things hungered for warm bodies?

      low-bearing shadows skittering across the road, dark shapes beneath the waves, glittering eyes watching from the corner of an empty room.

      the lich’s curse, had it followed them to california? — the beating of a thousand cold, black wings, the hot red sting of teeth a thousand more — had they brought him here?

      a quiet shuffle behind the bedroom door broke eddie free of his nightmarish daydream. the joyous sound of tom getting pulverized by jerry replaced the macabre as he quickly flipped the channel.

      news to be shared when the day wasn’t so fresh and cherry bright.

baby, it’s halloween ! — @greenscrunchy / phoebe bridgers

      foreboding so heady moments before vanished without a trace as chrissy exited their room. how was it that she outshined the autumnal sun sneaking in from the balcony and sent eddie’s heart skimming across his ribs like a skipping stone. a bear-like yawn, a siren song, messy hair holier than a halo.

      his own expression lit up as eddie unwittingly straightened his posture. ❝ ah, there she is. my favorite ghoul emerges from her crypt. just in time for a morning bite. ❞ he emphasized the last word with an exaggerated gnash of teeth. a playfully extravagant gesture indicated the souvenir plate on the table, its offerings awaiting her inspection.

      a medley of blackberries and grapes lined the one edge of the plate. cradled in its crescent, a flapjack fashioned from bisquick and pumpkin purée, carved to reflect a jack-o-lantern. triangle eyes. a serrated grin. it even had a stem with a mint leaf jabbed in its shoulder to give it a flair of color and authenticity. it was very — not convincing. the image in his metal head was much clearer on paper than on bread.

      ❝ happy halloween, scream queen, hopefully breakfast is, uh, less trick and more treat. ❞ teased the smarmy hinge of his grin, ❝ no promises. ❞

Saturday, October 31, 1987

Halloween today.

I actually woke up slowly. That’s kind of a feat, I think, since the bed’s cold. And it must be a little later because the sun is in my eyes again, but I’m not sure I mind, even if I did leave the blinds open overnight. 

chrissy blinked through the last dozy fog of her half-asleep thoughts, unorganized mumbles eventually fading in favor of whatever daring breakfast preparations distant dings of silverware and thunks of bowls seemed to hint at. with remarkable ease, she found herself relaxing into the soundtrack of existence in the tiny, two room apartment. 

There’s so much noise coming from the kitchen. Eddie must be up and letting his mad scientist side take over. Him and the TV aren’t exactly working together but something about it sounds nice. Homey. I love that. 

chrissy sighed toward the ceiling, but it was a whoosh of happy effort against a fluttering of autumn sunbeams. light funneled through her tiny bedroom window, its makeshift curtain rod festooned with a gamely attempt at bloody handprints on ripped white undershirts masquerading as curtains. honestly, it was a little silly; from across the room the handprints looked more like balding chrysanthemums, their optimistic magenta shade not quite so sanguine up close or far away. no passersby taking more than a split second to look at the boo-on-a-budget would catch a lasting fright. which, as far as chrissy was concerned, was perfectly acceptable.

the hiss of something hot swapping surfaces and the surge of a breaking news jingle on their pocket-square sized television brought the threads of her wakefulness together. mental diary abandoned, bare feet hit the chilly floor in determined finality. days began with or without her, no matter what season, so it was best to break out ahead before it got the best of her. or before eddie munson got the best of the galley. 

eddie’s would-be culinary exploits were often more mis than adventure despite all the attentive enthusiasm befitting a michelin star chef. sure, he was giving their now shared kitchen a run for its money in terms of resilience (and their budget, watched over faithfully by herself, a run for its money in terms of cleaning product costs). yet the strawberry blonde couldn’t find much will to play stingy with her space when her effusive metalhead derived such joy from a task so mundane. 

yes, it was going to be a good day when the tricks befitting a halloween weekend were far more frightful than the thought of breakfast treats. that was to say, not at all. 

chrissy really hadn’t expected such a bold greeting to slip from her mouth on the tail end of a yawn. a year ago, she might not even have been capable. but away the pet name flew and her excitement with it, making a mad dash for the spark in eddie’s eyes. embarrassment folded under contentment at the vision of a cloud of frizzy brown hair leaning over the counter, snapping his jaws like a creature of the night. nothing had ever been sweeter. in the spirit of impulsivity chrissy pranced across their sliver of living room and past the counter to wind tight arms around his middle. ❝ g'morning. ❞  the air seemed to soften around them even further, melting all the essence of living down to the warmth she clung to. eddie’s shirt was soft when she pressed her forehead into it — soft and warm and smelling like pancakes. like home.

                        ❝ let’s see. ❞  hope rose with her spirits and she burrowed her way under his arm to peek at the masterpiece beyond. comfy as eddie was, his torso was in the way.

                         ❝ aww, he’s got big teeth! and a stem! i love him. thank you.... ❞  an arm snuck forward to snag three grapes, all of which chrissy popped into her mouth at once. she allowed herself the time it took to finish chewing slowly before letting the resident artist go with a squeeze in favor of admiring his presentation.  ❝ the pumpkin was a good idea, too - i can smell it. did you make yourself one or are you going to help me with this one? ❞

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. ❞

pretend i'm dead.

dialogue prompts from pretend i’m dead by jen beagin.

sorry. i’ve made you uncomfortable with my creepy honesty.

would you care for a bear claw?

if god gives you lemons, find a new god.

i’m going to miss you. i miss you already.

you’re not even here. where are you right now?

do you live in a commune or something?

i wasn’t born like this, you know.

what’s your least favorite word?

i’ve always felt a weird affinity for monotony and repetition.

i make my living as a thief.

you smell like hope.

let’s embrace our lone wolf status.

all i ask is that you try not to judge me.

i don’t think we’re done with each other yet, do you?

could you come over? just for five minutes? i’m freaking out.

that’s why i took so many notes. i knew you’d want to know exactly what happened.

since when do you care about dying?

stay. i’ll read you a story.

i read your diary.

i fully want to make out with you again.

i’m like, totally lost without you.

i apologize for the tragic ending.

loneliness is a presence you can feel in your body.

i don’t have anyone making deals with the devil for me.

there’s something supernatural about you.

i don't like being pushed around by something i can't see.

i'm sorry. i'm just joking around, it's a defense mechanism.

you are what you talk about.

feelings are just stories. they have a beginning and an end.

don't be so sure my family wants to hear from me.

sometimes i think you make this shit up on the fly.

were you hitting on me last night?

you run like you're being chased by a demon.

you've always been good at pretending like nothing happened.

you're not ready yet. but i'll be here when you are.

it wasn't your fault. you know that, right?

what do you say? can we keep each other's secrets for a while?

which secret do you want me to keep?

hearing about myself in the past is like hearing about some other person.

god, you have a mean bone.

why are you lying?

honest to god, does that excuse ever work?

stop stalling and look at me.

when are you going to stop mocking me?

everyone has some psychic ability. you have to learn how to see first, and then you just read what you see.

do you know what it's like to be in love with someone who hates your guts?

i said i majored in ___, i never said i graduated.

i'm getting you out of here.

i've been thinking about whether or not to tell you something.

you know, there's a support group for people like you.

you and i have met for a reason.

you're either an optimist or a masochist.

just me, myself, and i. we bicker constantly.

i'll be your friend.

it was only a week, but it was the longest year of my life.

you ever own your part in anything. you make everyone else wear your shit.

i don't want a relationship. i want retribution.

rp sentence starters taken from  r.h. sin’s  work  ,  planting gardens in graves 

“ i find comfort beneath the stars ” “ i am free from you ” “ loneliness was the reason i held onto you ” “ you felt like home ” “ all you ever gave them was a town filled with misery ” “ my best relationship was with myself ” “ when people let me down all i had was me ” “ fall in love with my soul first ” “ they’ll always request your trust while betraying you ” “ you are not difficult to love ” “ what is there to love about a person who doesn’t love you ” “ losing you was not a loss ” “ i think i’m better now ” “ all the things that make you happy are either harmful or temporary ” “ they left you when you needed them the most ” “ fuck this idea that you need them ” “ you deserve so much more than what you’ve had ” “ i wear my sadness beneath my smile ” “ i’m not trying to pretend to be happy ” “ i’m just trying to remain strong ” “ all those second chances but everything remained the same ” “ you failed to walk away ” “ i’m way too observant to be fooled ” “ i notice and discover things yet i say nothing ” “ you were my favorite vice ” “ i had to bury you with the rest of my bad habits ” “ you were no longer deserving of my effort ” “ i don’t believe that and neither should you ” “ remember all the things you’ve survived ” “ find your peace and protect it ” “ sometimes you have to choose yourself ” “ people leave too soon ” “ i guess we should bury them deeper this time ” “ you’ve always had value ” “ i was always fighting but no one fought for me ” “ you’ve been searching for peace in chaotic souls ” “ at first the loneliness stings ” “ there’s no reward for coming in second ” “ i no longer desire to watch from the sidelines ” “ the fear of being abandoned keeps us unhappy and alone ” “ i thought i deserved to be unhappy ” “ the worst feeling is not knowing what you’re feeling ” “ i fell in love with your potential ” “ my tolerance for bullshit seems to diminish with age ” “ life appears differently the more you live it ” “ all i’ve ever known is hate ” “ i left myself behind to search for you ” “ my anger is a mask that hides my pain ” “ your lies were so loud ” “ beware of devils who tell lies in an honest tone ” “ my father didn’t raise me ” “ you are just like your mother ” “ your insecurities are not burdens ” “ lonely people do lonely things ” “ my father was the first person to break my heart ” “ you are no one’s instrument ” “ be careful who you make your memories with ” “ they’ll do anything to destroy your peace ” “ i found salvation last night ” “ the truth is i’m drowning in silence ” “ i remember falling ” “ someone taught you to associate anger with passion ” “ what leaves doesn’t deserve to be kept ”

oh teehee I'm in a silly goofy mood (I am hanging on by a fucking thread)

chrissy + dustin content <3

                  ❝ i've never been in a gang before. what am i supposed to do? do we have meetings? is it like a school club? ❞

@roastyoualive warren said to join the scooby gang so here she is

 💭 nancy chris headcanons

𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓸𝓷𝓼 — send 💭 + a topic to receive a headcanon about said topic.

nance and chris used to know each other before high school pulled them apart. not well, per se, but enough to be friendly. there was no great social catacylsm, really, just......being young pulling them every which way. chrissy knew barb from a distance, jonathan from a greater distance, and steve by virtue of....well, steve being steve. nancy had a sweet face and calm demeanor and the bubbly if still somehow quiet chrissy would have liked her quite a bit. and then everything got strange for a few years. life got more full and more complicated in equal measures. reputations got trickier and even though chrissy’s own wasn’t much of a prized trophy, high school drowned out faces more quickly than she would have liked. they could have been better friends if they had the time. at least ‘86 came along to rally everyone around the power of death. or resurrection. or both. they’d progressed nearly to strangers by ‘86 but spun quickly towards dear friendship after so much tragedy. 

chrissy wants to have nancy over to her house so badly. so badly. chrissy pines for a normal family home where friends that she made because other people like her for her and she likes them and feels safe around them can come and feel safe, too. but no, her last sleepover in fifth grade was over before sleep. laura had gotten frustrated about the amount of noise three little girls generated and the snacks they seemed to require. it was abruptly cancelled mid game of twister and mothers were called before they were within two hours of “lights out”.

the cunningham house is a trap and it needs to spring on no one else. all it takes is a few weeks for chrissy to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nancy would sniff out just what kind of house chrissy’s was. it’s not the shame of a friend knowing, it’s the shame of a friend having to feel how chrissy does, every day. she apologizes to nancy over and over and over for this. it might have been a small thing to anyone else, but with all that nancy does for chrissy, the gap feels huge. their happy medium likely ends up being long conversations in the cunningham’s driveway. or possibly nancy sneaking into chrissy’s room via climbing the trellis if nancy wants to. there’s mostly yellow and ruffles and pillows everywhere, but there are nice bookshelves and they can hide under a very large comforter and giggle if they feel so inclined. 

chrissy promises to tell nancy absolutely everything if nancy will tell her what happened every year before, starting with discovering upside down. there might be a hundred things they can piece together with the shards of honesty. it’s a lot of work, but chrissy is tired of pretending.

chrissy brings mrs. wheeler a little potted plant whenever she comes over and nancy always gets a nice pen or a purse sized notebook. the two girls are also well documented hair accessory fiends and probably trade clips back and forth and experiment with clip formations. 

their after school summer is full of mystery books and movies. i almost can’t see the two of them not forming some kind of mini book club and filling pages with theoretical notes. there are absolutely lists of worthwhile authors and too-predictable ones. 

why am i getting the feeling they scrapbook? 

the end of summer goodbye to nancy is one of the hardest to make, and likely the goodbye with the most tears. even an extended school year wasn’t enough time to make up for all that they’d missed. 

chrissy writes to nancy while they’re both at college with aggressive dedication. future plans spiral out of control, but chrissy is beginning to feel a fraction of nancy’s drive and it propels her to want more out of life, so chrissy asks for more. and it finally feels good instead of greedy. 

💭 + mementos of childhood

𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓸𝓷𝓼 — send 💭 + a topic to receive a headcanon about said topic.

HER FULL SET OF NANCY DREW MYSTERIES. those are precious to her and she keeps them well past adulthood and collects every one for as long as they’re published. 

a whole stack of little diaries with the worst locks of all time as clasps. you know the ones. she never wrote in them regularly and mostly copied passages from books and little poems that she liked in between actual thoughts and doodles. (only when she had good hiding places for her diary did her real thoughts come out.) all the identical cheap metal keys live on a frayed green ribbon necklace that chrissy used to wear “just in case anyone tries to steal my secrets”. 

lisa frank pencils and sticker covered notebooks. she kept a few of her favorite pencils whole and unsharpened and they live in her desk. same with several novelty erasers that have since dried beyond usability, but are just fun to look at.

teeny tiny scrunchies from when she had less hair and her wrists were smaller. their shrunken size doesn’t make them any less sweet and she enjoys keeping track of her favorite colors through the years.

a decorated shoebox full of ribbon bows, with notes and letters from cheer coaches past who always had lovely things to say. 

stuffed at the back of one drawer is the ace bandage from her first cheer injury - a rolled ankle. 

several shoeboxes full of makeshift scrapbook pages she tried throwing together as a little girl that never looked anything except disorganized. but she had a pretty solid eye for color grouping and aesthetic building, all the pages just looked messy. she keeps them as a reminder of how much she’s improved her approach.

then, there’s different boxes filled with victorian style cutouts of animals, angels, hearts, bows, gifts, phrases, and symbols of all kinds that she’s either saved or collects to use for cards. her valentines are stuff of legend. and lace. lots of paper lace. there’s also plastic gems she pried out of costume jewelry that get glued here and there onto the paper designs. more punchy than glitter, and far less messy.