Other Than Max And Lucas, The Girl Who Died In Ep 1 Was My Favorite This Season. Theres Just Something

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.

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. ❞

I’m fed up with you and the way that you do

I used to love you, now I change my mind

and I’m fed up with you feeding me a line

serendipity in deadtown.                        /                   @nonangelic​

there’s theories aplenty about the other side of death postulated by the living, but the problem is that no one actually knows anything about it unless they’re....well, dead. anecdotes about lamps or beckoning angels or loved ones or long ladders up to someplace bright and shiny were just that: anecdotes. unconfirmed even by dreams and near-death experiences alike. because it wasn’t the real thing if you came back from it. 

what does come after that anticipated, glorified transition from life on earth to the great beyond turns out to be, aptly, deadtown. the great city in the...sky? hell? either way, it’s the end. most times there isn’t any leaving.

exiting deadtown wiped the memories of death after death clean out of the brain. at least that’s the impression chrissy got from witnessing the one one or two exits followed by a reentrance not long after. brevity was long opined the soul of wit, but it the heart of heartbreak, too. no life was long enough, and not even the wizard or superhero or guy-who-knew-a-guy-who-knew-a-guy could stop the wheel of mortality from turning. all things ended.

except who chrissy was when she died. she was confused. shy. hopeful. looking for someone.

someone absolutely not here in deadtown, but that she’d look for eternally until further notice.

a gargoyle who introduced himself as neil lurked pleasantly behind a café counter, watching chrissy from the corner of his eye, as if her presence was both brand new and absolutely expected. chrissy hadn’t thought she’d died before the first friday of spring break, but at this rate anything was possible. best to stop asking questions.

                       ❝  so — how does this work, exactly?  ❞     ......after that one.

neil just chuckled. the door blew open in answer instead of him. evening and the scent of autumn trickled in like a discontinued department store perfume. considering the setting, that might have been true. chrissy watched from the corner of her eye as moonlight blew its way over the doorjamb in ruffled, yet smooth, locks. she used to be that put together, once. the cheerleader stared into the sudden appearance of a cup smelling like black coffee with just a hint of sugar. steam wafted up to her nose languidly, buoyed by the last vestiges of the entryway breeze. 

                      ❝  oh.  ❞  it’s easy, then, to smile. despite the missing and the looking over her shoulder, the answer was there before she knew the question. chrissy kept the smile pinned in place to level at the shadow near her shoulder.  ❝  do you have a usual, too?  ❞

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. ❞

💭 + 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. 

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ      𝔼𝔻𝔻𝕀𝔼      𝕄𝕌ℕ𝕊𝕆ℕ,                               (hellmartyr​)

𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐕𝐎𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 bombarded the theater with rapacious glee. metallic barks followed gluttonous drops as they sniffed out every crevice, every surface, like foxhounds in pursuit of their eponymous prey. the accompanying winds were equally ruthless, tearing at the woods that outlined campus. roots moaned in an uncanny human chorus as they clung to clods of drowned soil. barks of thunder followed claws of fearsome light, incensed by the trees’ refusal to surrender their centennial roosts.

      eddie munson had given up on music as he labored by candlelight. layers of rebar and concrete couldn’t placate the stormy quarrel, and each time the most satisfying part of a song was about to assail his eardrums — a peal of thunder injected a riff of its own. thus he surrendered to the company of silence, interrupted only by the echoes of his own activity and nature’s bitchy roiling.

      but at least tonight’s premier bullshit worked in his favor. normally goblin’s three hundred sixty days of downpour lacked an inspiring ambiance for campaigns set in sandy tombs of reanimated kings or crystalline caverns carved deep within an ivory castle. this semester was different; four months of adventuring ( and a previous summer of planning ) brought the members of the hellfire club to a gothic crypt and its restless denizens. here, in the belly of a diabolical mansion torn between the material plane and an eldritch parallel, heroes would face their most dastardly foes yet while negating the sadistic twists their dungeon master had slithering in his sleeves.

      the wild-haired eccentric was always one to set a stage for the finale. what started as simple seasoning grew more and more elaborate over the past six years. eddie was determined to make this night of zenith revelry one to remember. his swan song before graduation. a didactic legacy for all dms who thought themselves worthy of his draconian lineage.

      last year’s after-halloween sales had given the youngest munson an idea. he raided what was left on the clean-picked shelves of pop-up shops and every discount store in the county. over the next several months, added to his growing stockpile via regular visits to every bargain dealer within reach of his cough-and-hack brick of a van.

      his uncle’s trailer became a slaughterhouse of creativity. cheap curtains shredded and stained by hand hung from the ceiling while sheets and shirts lingering long past their natural lifespans were cut-up on the floor. testing anything at school was too risky; the hellfire club was made up of a clever bunch. so, his uncle wayne was forced to endure several months of embellishing chaos as eddie turned their small home into a dollar store’s rendition of a haunted house.

      by mid-january the bulk of the backdrop was done. eddie packed it into two old moving boxes and stored them in the corner of his room where it silently teased him till the momentous day. the time between was spent on finishing touches: spray painted candelabras, disposable wine glasses transformed into jewel encrusted goblets, plastic skulls smeared in coffee and dirt, and a cathedrals worth of white candles.

      now those latter bastards had been his bane. eddie pre-burned half of the lot while he melted down the rest to be reforged in various shades of black and red. he trawled candle making books for how to do it, but fell back on good ol’ trial and error since he lacked just about every damn thing the instructions called for. but, after coating the trailer’s kitchenette in a waxy film for two weeks, the young man succeeded and gave rise to one of his favorite decorations: a skull with a black cherry candle burning through its head, twin flows oozing out its sockets like offerings of an unholy sacrament.

      wayne was visibly relieved when his nephew loaded everything into his van last night, yet still commented on how neat it was all going to be once eddie set it up. months of work, now lambasted all over the theater, looking just how its creator envisioned it … or at least a realistic interpretation. and in all fairness, the decorum looked a little less — thrifty — in the moody lighting.

      reaping what he’d sown at last, eddie glanced at his watch. done and with plenty of time to spare. if the storm kept up its scathing temper ( knowing goblin’s visceral hatred for all things breathing, it would ), then tonight, hellfire was really going to taste the truth of their namesake —

      eddie’s head jerked up as the weathered doors keened open. a pillar of dim light cut through the pitch of the theater’s innards. an elongated shadow stretched over the foyer as munson dropped low.

      shit — why were the guys so early? were they planning something too?

      fist balled tightly, teeth grinding his lower lip in a row of frustration. careful to avoid any unwanted sneaker squeaks, eddie crept around the table into recesses so opaque the candles’ sultry lighting wouldn’t dare breach it. if the boys hoped to get the drop on him, there was a price to pay for attempting to outplay the master.

@greenscrunchy, this is for you

goblin high school was haunted. at least, it was supposed to be.

there’s no proof besides stories, the customary churning water wheel of rumours that flowed ceaselessly through cracked linoleum-lined hallways. arteries from a heart in which children were flung loose, but goblin was so famous for its tall tales that every one of them might as well have been set in stone. perfectly preserved history. so wild they had to be true. repeated and repeated and repeated, religiously cradled in the minds of the peculiarly suburban city dwellers of goblin. when a small city operated like an even smaller town, there had to be something keeping everyone spinning.

of course it would be the ghosts.

among whom were the phantoms of the senior class royal couple that tracked chrissy cunningham down the corridor leading away from the basketball court, floating just behind the squeak of her sneakers all the way from the wood-paneled gymnasium to wherever it is she was trying to escape. a foxhole she needed to decide upon quickly before she ended up in a circle right where she started from, the place she wanted to be the least. 

at her back, raucous cheers rumbled still from throats packing the gym. goblin’s marauders had won the basketball championship game, thoroughly shocking all onlookers to the point of pure frenzy. even chrissy let the momentary thrill consume her, shaking wild pompoms along with her entire stunned squad. all it took was a foul, a timeout, and a benchwarmer launching his perfectly timed gamble into the air for a nail-biting three pointer no doubt already being carved in the annals of goblin legend. the basketball had swished through the net against a backdrop of a final buzzer. thunder to rival even goblin skies’ best and boomiest rattled the foundations of the gym until even the buried-upright dead in the graveyard miles away could feel so many joyous vibrations. 

an unlikely win from an unlikely source. no one present would ever forget it and wouldn’t keep it to themselves. it would make the goblin post before sunday. 

enthusiasm befitting of a true sportswoman buoyed chrissy until before the amoebic goblin high crowd could even begin to think of oozing off the court and into the downpour outside, washing slurries of the away team with them. an indoor tennis match would follow not long behind, somewhat of a downturn in excitement after such a triumph for the basketball team. but around here, the rain made the rules. initial celebrations could not last forever - and chrissy had to get out before anyone tried to pull her attention. particularly, especially, jason. his prior pep rally stunt was the only one of its kind she could bear after a week of heightened pda; all for show to hammer home goblin’s worth as the next district champions. goblin had the team, and the team captain had the girl. (until teenage throngs abandoned the couple for more riveting objects of affection and jason melted into the shadows to wrap his arm around lizzie miller.)

meanwhile chrissy ticked down seconds until she could bolt from the room he was in, with the additional bonus that no one should be able to ascertain the source of her disquiet lest her performance be revealed as just that: a performance and a sham.

the hallway ahead stretched longer and longer, calling to mind a frustratingly pliable piece of taffy on a summer afternoon. it kept going, and going, and going. a monstrous unfairness when all chrissy wanted was a simple getaway, tucked out of sight from swaths of paper banners drowned in every drop of purple and green paint goblin high school could wrap their wet, wrinkled hands around.

nothing but purple and green. chrissy hated purple and green. purple and green together. the fluttering rustle of pompoms clutched white-knuckled in both hands mocked her, their vomitous, plastine shine reflecting goblin high’s storm-lit passages. separated, she didn’t mind the colors too terribly much. even a rare violent in the grass was more pleasant. but in school all bets at their joint attractiveness were off. 

a metallic clang punctuated the now distant rumble of sports fanatics and thunder combined. chrissy stuffed her pompoms into the depths of her locker, out of sight at last, exchanging them for the soft pink corduroy of her backpack. its weight comfortably settled the pumping desire to take flight far, far away although not enough to quell her urge to hide. 

somewhere. there had to be somewhere quiet and dark she could wait out her tides of discontentment apart from the ghosts. maybe.....

there was one possibility. enough of one that chrissy’s feet took off again, chasing down the faint illusion of privacy. down the main hallway to the right, past the a.v. closet, past the principle’s office and the coachs’ offices, veering to the left toward the science lab, the school nurse, and just beyond....the theater. perfect. 

like a blessing from heaven, the enormous doors hung open juuuuust a sliver. 

in a flash chrissy bolted for the alluring dark ribbon of silent freedom. mere moments later she’d dragged one door open enough to slip inside. the answering darkness was almost dizzyingly relaxing in comparison to the shadowy high school corridors now echoing signs of life; students were emerging from the gym and she’d been just in time to miss all the action.

her forehead met the cool surface of the doors as she shut them decisively. heavy exhales gusted against the metal until she could wrangle her heartbeat back in check. only for it to halt completely when a rustle split the curtain of silence.

solitude rendered itself an illusion. 

trepidation tempered a one-eighty pivot to investigate the source and weighed down painfully on her heel. a strange terror built as her peripherals picked up on a flickering light that multiplied with each centimeter exposed. more, more, and  —

the full revelation of why lay behind resulted in startled howl.

as a cheerleader, most would imagine chrissy’s voice capable of projecting powerfully across any open space. reality was far less impressive. instead of a mighty, rousing shout, all chrissy was capable of was a high pitched, elongated squeak. nevertheless, it communicated the same thing.

                                            ❝ OHMYGOD! ❞

spread across the room was a rippling tableau of yawning skulls dripping in waxy blood, goblets filling unsettlingly with dark liquid, and scattered glimmers of who knew what all over a rich tablecloth in pitch hues. everywhere the dull, ghostly white of bone and insidious sparkle of metal sent candlelight ricocheting across the theater. among the instruments of death, almost randomly but not quite, were placed multiple kinds of dice and miniature figures looking frozen from battle.

not even the zombified goblin police could compare to the sensation of wrongness filling the room. whatever she’d stumbled upon, it couldn’t possibly be good. 

a million years later but it never felt more right 🧡 the biggest, BIGGEST thank you to sky for this gorgeous piece with my favorite troubled trio!

A commissioned sketch for @greenscrunchy of Steve, Chrissy, and Eddie looking very concerned! I always love an opportunity to draw the babies- thank you so much for commissioning me!!

okay i think i’ve waited a healthy amount of time — here’s the inaugural starter call! any and all verses are open as options. lengths will range from several inches to a mile. may or may not also include bonus musical tracks.   no cap / no expiration.

teiknu​:

Goofy movie au with chrissy and eddie