Order Up! Remember To Do Something Just For Yourself Today. You're Doing Your Best And You Deserve A

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.

as i watch (and rewatch and rewatch) s4 ep4, it's impossible not to reflect on how each of vecna's victims may hazily or not so hazily represent different stages of giving up on life as a young person. across the board, all four teens presented flickering signs of internal turmoil that could have been clocked under a more watchful eye. but it's still those small differences, those small choices, that make a world of difference when it comes to approaching a struggling friend.

chrissy didn't truly want to die, just to escape. she easily could have been pulled out of her state of desperation if someone had truly stepped in a little earlier. the one helpful person she managed to confide in, ms. kelley, despite ms. kelley's valuable efforts, didn't have the time or the bandwidth for her she might have liked. the next person didn't know chrissy well enough to properly step in and intervene, even though he tried and came the closest anyone had so far. but before that, none of her peers had invested in her in an actionable way despite her tries to find her way through the cracks of her own self-made image and call for help. everyone assumed everything was fine, until it wasn't. because it was chrissy.

fred was the bottler, who channeled and ignored his way through guilt and grief to build himself a normal life out of ruins. and it worked! it worked until a trigger appeared. enough of a trigger to bring him back down. it started small, but grew more debilitating over a short period and sent him down a dark, consuming spiral that he all of a sudden couldn't escape from. he'd unintentionally isolated himself, and no matter who might have wanted to step in for him in his time of need, they were too far away. fred didn't truly want to die either. but once his trigger became too close and suffocating, he lost his way.

patrick was the wilter, who incrementally became less and less of himself among his family and friends. the way his father treated him ground down his self esteem and warped the voice inside his head until it became nothing but his father's unkind words. unfortunately, the descent was so gradual that all his friends adapted until suddenly it was long past too late to pull patrick from the depths of his sunken self worth and tell him he deserved better.

then there's max. the avoidant. the stoic. she plugged along, trying to pull herself up and out by her own bootstraps. but the biggest difference here was the open investment her friends maintained in her life. they were willing to bend over backwards to remain by her side until she reached out a hand for help. they tried and tried and tried until it was almost too late, but by then, they'd done enough. max saw just how much she was watched over. she saw her friends' concern for what it was: love, not nagging complaints that she "wasn't who she used to be". they cared more for her well being than to where the old max had disappeared. they paid attention to what mattered to her and offered it when she was finally ready. at every turn after the graveyard, she worked to accept more help and they did the work to understand what kind of communication max needed so that she could continue trusting they had her best interest at heart.

td;lr - love your friends loudly. you never know who might need what.

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​

𝔻𝔼𝔸ℝ   𝔼𝕃𝔼ℕ𝕆ℝ𝔼   𝕎ℍ𝕀𝕋𝔼,                                       (bakcr​)

*  ―      settling dust.   |  accepting.

            “ come on… wake up. please… please wake up… “ 🙃

* .  ♡ she should have gone home. should have tried to make her way BACK to home ages ago. maybe none of this would have happened. maybe she would have been able to wake up, in her bed, in her time. but of course - life was a bitch and none of that happened. ellie knew that there was SOME trauma in her life, but she didn’t think that it was enough to gain the attention of vecna. that fucking clock chiming was enough to give her MORE trauma and she wondered if that was WHY it was there in the first place. but then, all of a sudden - it had stopped. no more chimes, no more bad dreams, it was silent. until her paranoia and night terrors kicked in again. and this was the 80s, working through something was hard.

                                                              so when she and @greenscrunchy​ got closer, she knew that at least SOMEONE would understand what she was going through. it had been a really bad night terror - one where she would scream bloody murder and people would think there actually WAS a murder. ellie could feel hands gripping onto her shoulders, shaking her slightly - nails digging into her skin. she was on the cusp of consciousness, but it was taking a longer time than normal for her to wake up. almost a solid ten seconds later, did ellie’s eyes snap open. her breathing heavy, like she had just run a marathon without stopping - a sob and a cry. ellie sits up and falls onto chrissy - arms wrapping around the slender girl, who had been hovering over her - trying to wake her up for the past ten minutes. “ i’m sorry - ” the brunette kept repeating. “ i’m sorry, i’m sorry. ” she doesn’t want the trauma of vecna to come back, but sometimes her nightmares wouldn’t let her escape. “ chrissy … ” she groaned. “ fuck. ”

                                      ❝ don’t do this, not now. ellie…. ❞  the motions blurred feverish, superheated by chrissy’s depths of alarm and thunderous eagerness not to find out what happened when a girl out of time faded from one that wasn’t her own. if ellie were to be snatched by another something from a nightmare dimension… if at this very moment, in another place, ellie was screaming for help while chrissy cluelessly tried to give it without making a mite of difference, the cheerleader would never forgive herself. she’d never forgive herself, she’d never  ――

                                      ❝ oh, thank god, ❞  gasped sharply in tandem with ellie’s own jolted resurrection. chrissy flung her arms around all of her shaking friend available to reach. one set of fingers tangled with another as if to weave a net strong enough for the both of them to collapse on and keep steady.   ❝ it’s okay. i’ve got you. it’s alright. hey, breathe with me? ❞   this of course required chrissy to herself model some form of controlled lung motion – easier said than done. but years of cheer and airborne spills prepared her for this. it’s all about staying calm. staying focused. knowing where you were in space and how to contort to land safely. right now they were in the park, prickled by emeraldine grass around a picnic table, on a saturday in the beginning of may. all small things, but so weighty in the moment.

chrissy hated to admit it, but ellie was right. fuck was right.   ❝ don’t be sorry. those things in your head aren’t your fault. i just hoped… ❞  the urge to fidget seemed better redirected toward hauling the both of them squarely upright and leaning against the bench.  ❝ …that you wouldn’t get sucked somewhere no one could find you. or that you couldn’t come home from. ❞ 

( had this been how it felt to watch her float, to break? )

reblog this to give the person you reblogged this from a gold star because they’ve been stellar today and they deserve it ⭐️

indie.    𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐚  𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨    of  resident  evil  village.  loved  by  aila,  25+.         some  base  graphics  provided  by  blitzkriegers.

    I’m dead. The deadest girl in Deadtown. It’s been a while now. I’m comfortable with the word. You wouldn’t believe how comfortable the dead can get. We don’t tiptoe. Dead. Dead. Dead. Flying Ace of the Corpse Corps. Stepping the light. Deathtastic. I don’t actually know what a doornail is, but we have a lot in common. Dying was the biggest thing that ever happened to me. I’m famous for it.

    And the thing about me is, I’m not coming back. Lots of people do, you know. Deadtown has pretty shitty border control. If you know somebody on the outside, somebody who knows a guy, a priest or a wizard or a screenwriter or a guy whose superpower shtick gets really dark sometimes or a scientist with a totally neat revivification ray who just can’t seem to get federal funding, you can go home again. But we go steady, Death and me. Nobody can tear us apart

    When the fires went out in Manhattan, they went out in her eyes, too.                              It’s nice to be famous for something, I guess.

             –  the  refrigerator  monologues .                                by  catherynne  valente .

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.

[hoarsely] is everyone ok