Self + Hope

“ it’s right between ‘ouch’ & ‘boing.’ “               /              @quietresistance​

not bursting into chuckles felt out of the question. the word choice, so far-flung yet oddly specific, captured chrissy’s fascination in an instant. how obvious, in retrospect, that a reporter would have a grip on language so unrelenting that they could make words dance in patterns more complicated than any cheer or ballet routine. chrissy crushed her brows together, an image of pure concentration, already sensing herself slipping down a rabbit hole of wondering if she’d ever experienced something in parallel. 

certainly chrissy’d had her fair share of ouch. perhaps the reporter’s wordsmithing magic had seeped into the stale hawkins general hospital air, because that simple sound, ouch, was beginning to take a thousand shapes inspired by eighteen short years of near constant physical activity. come to think of it, there was a surfeit of boings, too. before the events of a week and a half ago, chrissy hadn’t known the breadth of disasters it was possible to bounce back from, or that she could survive so many in a row, even just barely. 

right... a week and a half ago. the upside down and the earthquake. likely the whole reason the reporter had come. and she was the whole reason chrissy had asked how it felt to be a woman with a pen in a business so full of men. somewhere in between painful and disorienting. bruising and frustrating. difficult, but so, so interesting. 

                        ❝ i haven’t read any newspapers or news stories that sounded half as creative as what you just said. hopefully when by the time you finish your hawkins story, everyone will take you twice as serious. ❞   a blush pink, chipped-polish painted fingernail found a snag in the rough hospital blanket. chrissy paused.   ❝ but you still must be trusted a lot if you’re here, to try and make sense of....everything. ❞

can chrissy season a skillet or must she undergo some training?

send me your character and I’ll tell you if I think they know how to season/care for cast iron cookware.

I don’t think she can. I’m so sorry Chrissy. Nothing about the Cunningh.am family screams cast iron enthusiasts. I feel like her mother would have some weird classist opinion on the use of cast iron. I feel like she grew up exclusively around soulless stainless steel cookware. Chrissy would probably enjoy cooking in cast iron later and learning about its care.

𝙸'𝙼 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚈 𝚂𝙰𝚈.

horror multi-muse directed by vox lux.

#Happy May the 4th to Steve Harrington <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

From one Chrissy mun to another; I want to give you a little reminder that your portrayal is one of a kind! You put so much into the writing and into making her your own version and it shows! (Plus you have great muse taste). I'm rooting for you endlessly and wish you a happy hump day! May the rest of your week go swimmingly!

^^^ me when you

in all seriousness, what a lovely thing to see today!!! it warms my heart so much to know chrissy has such sweet rep in this little community and your positivity in particular is a gift. 🧡 tysm victoria!!! keep on keeping on yourself, and cheers to spectacular muse taste ;)

much love from me to you 🧡💚🤍 team chrissy always

Uh so in other good news, flattery works with me, so Twenty-five percent discount for the half. Fifteen bucks

𝔼ℂℍ𝕆'𝕊 𝕄𝕀𝕏𝕋𝔸ℙ𝔼  X  𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒸𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓎   ( @galaxycrxss​ )

i never thought i'd lose my place, i never thought it'd slip away ( guarded - flor )  /  hear me when i say i’m leaving winter for the spring ( don’t want to go - nigel good )  /  echoes inside - dugo  /  i’ve been through hell and back ( learn to let go - kesha )  /  1984 - the northern lights  

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

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