As I Watch (and Rewatch And Rewatch) S4 Ep4, It's Impossible Not To Reflect On How Each Of Vecna's Victims

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.

𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙊𝙉                           ( hellmartyr​ )

you deserve better than this … better than me … — @greenscrunchy / angsty prompts

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐓𝐒 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐒.

      at first eddie thought her sadness was a detail in a dream. a specter of the subconscious, summoned by whatever bullshit mayhem his beer-battered brain was slathering across his cortex. bad trip without the high, when senses got so convinced that reality was just a suggestion right up until your eyes split open and the lucid imagery turned a slippery mess.

      awareness emerged from a cloudy pool, prodding floaty nerves with tingling pins and needles. chrissy was a silent echo ringing in his ears, her words too old to be strung together were now indiscernible water drops dispersed into the corners like shades.

      dark eyes fluttered open to an even darker room. a backlighting of blue cut through the gap between the curtains and the window. the back of his hand, stationed beside his nose, soaked up the cobalt. eddie’s fingers retracted from the temptation to reach over and prove to himself that his friend was still asleep. that the lonely lie had not been real, just a figment of a morbid imagination. but the sour knot in his gut warned that the moment his warmth met hers, she’d betray them both with a wince.

      ❝ whose voice told you that? ❞ he asked the deep blue, ❝ vecna’s? ❞ venom coated the name. two thousand miles was not enough to stall a fresh the anger felt each time eddie recalled his unseen enemy. the lich survived, the chorus of heartbeats buried in his honeycomb scars reminded him that the promise of retribution at the climax of a hero’s tale was a fantasy, not a guarantee.

      crisp sheets rustled as the young man twisted around and peered at the soft outline balled up on the other side of the barrier. eddie hovered, searching for an explanation too private to see.

      ❝ yours? ❞ gingerly he sat up to project his plea over the fort, ❝ chris? ❞

      the headboard creaked against his weight as eddie propped himself against the frame. his perspective switched between the popcorn ceiling and the vortexed donald duck on his nightshirt.

      ❝ y’know, for a really long time, the only friends i had were in books. i, uh, i think middle school was the first time i hung out with someone and not because we were sent to the principal’s office together. so, can you level with me? because this isn’t exactly my field of expertise, ❞ the back of his skull clocked the wall as eddie fixated plaster clusters above, finding cohesive shapes were there was none, ❝ and fuck if i know what can be better than the best. ❞

a turned back was small defense from the wave of honesty soaking the darkened bedroom. chrissy had balled herself around a swelling hurricane of inferiority masked by a now faded silhouette of tweety bird, its cheery yellow emblazoned across her nightshirt faded into black shadow. her formerly upward mood had faded with an equal ferocity earlier that afternoon. being hopeful, even happy, something like truly happy, around eddie had become nearly as easy as breathing. natural. but it was as easy and natural to watch her bright little world closing in around her after listening to a crazed and caustic telephone message from none other than laura cunningham.

if nothing else, laura was consistent. there wasn’t a word in the message chrissy hadn’t been pierced by a thousand time before. she knew the cadence of her mother’s derision almost better than the sound of her own private thoughts. but it wasn’t a mother’s ire that bounced around her mind at the speed of a rogue basketball, or even a mother’s doubt.

                        ❝  mine. i say so. ❞

after all his kindness that he’d brought to her doorstep, this is what she had to offer. doubt.

                        ❝ i’m not just saying that, eddie. you –  ❞  god, what was the point? what was the point of her, being such a bottomless pit on whom generosity was wasted because she couldn’t even grasp it long enough for a chance at absolution? honestly, she must not deserve a drop if she was as watertight as a sieve. 

                        ❝ you came all this way and i’m a mess. ❞  the vise of her jaw clapped shut as how she truly sounded dawned upon her. belated good sense whispered the danger of what eddie might think she meant, right after the words marched out of her mouth.  ❝ scratch that. having you here…. it’s more than anyone’s done before? i guess i feel awful for wanting you to stay but i really don’t want you to leave. ❞

all the sequestered pain she’d been carrying like buried shards of glass since eddie arrived flayed her insides on the way out, dragging stringy regrets and shriveled, acid-burnt hopes along with them. a piteous river of entrails with so many shameful secrets on display, knotted beyond any hope of detangling and none of her tossing and turning in the middle of the night would sort her out. 

in the midst of her disquiet, chrissy eased to her other side where the pillow wall waited. her stupidest idea possibly ever. just over the top she could see eddie’s head, but that was all. it was a protection and a taunt all at once. a joke she'd cracked at her own expense. her left hand lifted almost without her permission to skate the top of the farcical wall and tug it down, just a little, to pull eddie’s presence a tiny bit closer. maybe this way he could hear what she was really trying to say in between all her bouts of lunacy. 

                        ❝ do you know what left handed people are called?  ❞

amylforsythe: Oh Chrissy. How sweet; you little tortured soul. […]

had chris survived the great vecna-ing of spring ‘86, no doubt she’d be dressing up as sarah from labyrinth.

before ‘86 it was princess leia multiple times, and once she and two little friends dressed up as judy, violet, and doralee from 9 to 5.

Sharp Objects - 1x05 “Closer”

send  ❛ ♡ ❜  to suddenly hug my muse  ! 

could be angst  ,   romantic   ,  plationic  ,  etc.

𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙏 𝙄𝙎 𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙍𝘼𝘾𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝙍𝘾?

𝓇𝑜𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 / 𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅 𝒶𝓇𝒸. you started this story a little hard, or awkward, or stubborn. that's okay. it's harder than it should be to admit, but what you really want is love. that's what your story is all about - not just the act of loving, but the allowance of it. the confession that you do not want to fight or bleed or save the world, but to simply feel the way two hands fit so easily together. you will have two chairs and a table and you will shut your blinds, and you will say the word love without faltering. this is a happy ending, and you do not need to feel guilty. it hurts our hands to fight - never to hold.

𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮: @manaborn​  ♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜:  whoever is curious!

it wasn't your fault. you know that, right?             /             @vihilum​ (nancy)

the breath chrissy drew in was long and labored.

hawkins’ last three roller coaster years had proved wildly informative. power hungry corporations were allegedly endangering kids left and right, often enough to kill a few.  (chrissy still recalled the last time she saw barbara holland in the cafeteria. if memory served, chrissy had been a little jealous of the smile on barb’s face.)  there had been monsters at work from the beginning, biding their time below hawkins like spiders twitching, waiting patiently for a fly to clumsily flutter its way into their web.

but what chrissy cunningham had known for longer than the godforsaken upside down existed? it was her fault. it was always her fault. for eating the extra mouthful of protein, for not smiling hard enough, for not kicking high enough, for not willing herself weightless in the air to fly higher, born just unpretty enough to have to make up for that lack everywhere else. 

amazing, how one voice could sound like a thousand. and the few outliers that didn’t sound like the one rang so falsely at first.

                       ❝ are we so sure? ❞  i was weak enough to start the disaster. the gates. 

she pivoted to look at nancy. hard. it felt monstrous all of a sudden to bore her gaze into the fellow senior’s face. it felt.....like turning the splitting stare of her own mother onto someone innocent of any wrongdoing. all nancy wheeler, good, reasonable, strong, determined nancy wheeler who flouted every high school expectation to stick up her chin and say what i want matters more than what you think of me, had done was ask an absolving question. 

from experience, a queen bee’s glare could wither anyone from underclassmen to upperclassmen just as much as her smile could turn eyes to stars. that power came in handy now and again, unearned as it was. but in this moment....

she couldn’t do this. chrissy couldn’t do this to nancy. not even because she wanted honesty without cotton candy fluff and nonsense. to survive all this and to let her fears and worry mold her around constant suspicion? what a waste of time all but lost the night spring break began. she’d already spent enough of her life ruined and pretending.

                      ❝ i’m sorry i’m pushing you. there’s still.... ❞  the smile she tried to push forth flickered true for a moment, then plummeted to bittersweet. no vaseline teeth here. (deep down, something hinted that nancy's the type to say forced optimism is pointless. the impression unwound a hidden knot in the cheerleader’s chest.)  ❝ a lot to wrap my head around. have you ever been told something your whole life then all of a sudden the opposite is true? ❞  the words floated a few moments before chrissy huffed a chuckle at her toes, flicking her left pointer nail against the seam in her pants.  ❝ like maybe there’s no such thing as a parallel universe. and suddenly there is, right here under our feet. ❞