#hellmartyr

          hot take with this one but: i think it’s stupid when a person only gets popular for aesthetics and aesthetics alone. there are plenty of amazing rpers who get overlooked time and time again because they don’t have blinding font colors or text that makes you go cross-eyed on their blog. it’s truly baffling and super exclusionary and i’ve seen plenty of people feel inadequate and straight up leave fandoms i’ve been a part of because people won’t give them the time of day because they either aren’t skilled enough or don’t have the money to pay for “fancy” graphics and it’s really just sad.

          that said, if you’re someone who likes aesthetics, that’s cool; good for you, this isn’t a shot at anyone who likes that stuff. i just think it becomes a problem when that’s a rp blog’s main priority, considering a rp blog is made for rping, but that’s just my two cents!

tell jeff something he needs to hear, good or bad.

There is NO WAY. Those kinds of things do not happen in real life, that is a SAD, immutable fact. Still, the imagery of is fantastic. One moment the pentacle of WASPdom, the next moment torn apart atom by atom leaving his cliche letterman jacket, Izod shirt, tight black jeans and pristine sneakers in a crumpled heap on the floor. It’s TOO funny, really. Jeff throws his head back and LAUGHS, unencumbered for the first time in a long time.

Rembrandt wasn’t a fighter even with the dark red vest hanging from his shoulders that said ‘WARRIOR’ in large letters. It was something of a mutual understanding amongst the gang to look out for the kid when there was a rumble or if another gang sent a war party looking to bop or parlay. He was the kid brother some of them never had even if he had come up through the pavement like all of them had and depending on the metric used to measure it in more hostile conditions than most. 

He was quick for instance and good at hiding when he needed to be. And he’d had to use both skillsets to get out of sight from the Rogues when they came rolling through. Every gang in city new about the bastards. They were crazy fuckers. Cop killers too if the rumors were true. 

He didn’t see where they went only hearing the menacing roll of the hearse they drove around in. He wondered from his hiding place where they had gotten the machine- cars were hard to come by, ones that ran were harder. And then of course there was gas.

For a time there was silence followed by the shrill, manic laughter of the Rogue’s leader and then the sound of the hearse finally disappearing in the distance. Still Rembrandt stayed hidden, cautious as a young dear in the wake of a predator. 

When he did emerge he moved slowly carefully observing and listening for any change in the environment before he headed towards safety, towards the Warriors base. Being out in the open street again made him nervous and he wished he had the safety of numbers on his side. He paused suddenly, aware of a sound nearby. It was vulnerable sound, human or animal and frightened- possibly wounded. Slowly he moved toward it, hoping childishly it might be a cat or dog. 

He stopped abruptly, when he found the source. A man, older than he was but not by much. He looked in rough shape, long hair like the Rogues tended to have, his clothes reminded him of the Rogues too. But something else made him think this was no bopper. Maybe it was the fact he didn’t look bugfuck crazy. 

there’s so much wrong with this place. everything, actually. 

as if the void dimension’s very existence wasn’t crime enough, chrissy stumbled down a hill covered in vines that appeared locked in a neverending battle with themselves, writhing and thrashing until too exhausted to continue. the ground crawled, the sky grumbled. unearthly animal voices chittered nearby every time chrissy so much as scuffed her sneakers too loudly. 

if her nerves weren’t completely shot by the time she escaped, they’d be numb enough to fool her into thinking they were useless. 

like the sky itself was ill, it regularly spat out streams of bloodstained lightning to wash the stale air in a rainbow of bruised indigo across sickly green, mocking her own bruised body - or complementing it. every sound echoed only to disappear moments afterward. even the echoes seemed doomed to die mere yards from their origin.

time burnt away meaninglessly the further chrissy walked on....and on.....and on until  —  yes, finally, main street snuck into view. hawkins always seemed so small from behind a set of wheels. just another pint-sized half awake middle american town that only stirred on weekends and holidays, where people still used the word “newfangled” and the church bell still told the time better than anyone’s watch. family businesses rarely closed because the family seldom moved. home was familiar. home was predictable, safe. 

chrissy had never been more sure of anything in her life when she stared down at the rotten facsimile of hawkins and reminded herself it was the farthest thing from safe. 

what she ought to have done was make a beeline for the police station. that would have been the wisest, smartest thing. but at the sight of the mayor’s office a few blocks away, a wall of exhaustion hit chrissy harder than a freight train. all that walking after an impromptu resurrection did nothing for her stamina and the thought of rest was enough to make her want to burst into tears. enough for her to creep up the office steps and gently pry open the door. inside was silent as a graveyard and twice as dark. dust motes floated in in the air, swirling into eddies while she tiptoed down the central hallway. going up the stairwell was tantamount to courting disaster - even keeping her back to it felt risky. then the smallest stroke of luck materialized in a plush (if musty) chaise lounge tucked away in an office. with some difficulty chrissy managed to drag it all the way back to the front doors and scoot it against the wall adjacent. this way, nothing could get in or out without her knowing. the best she could ask for at the moment. all that was left was to lay down, find an angle that didn’t exacerbate the shooting pain in her shoulder, and attempt to sleep. 

pain lingered no matter how she arranged her limbs, but sleep... sleep crept up on her without warning. the world fell into darkness so quickly that when chrissy awoke it was with a twitch of terror. she couldn’t remember toeing the familiar, milky line between consciousness and the void.

everything looked exactly the same as when she’d arrived. 

had hours passed? had days?

without any shift in light and no sound from the church bell or town center clock, chrissy might as well have been in the same place forever. such a thought blasted shivers into her every extremity. time to move along. this place gave her every species of the creeps ever invented. 

the next two blocks to the police station were small potatoes compared to her haunted trek from the creel house. her body still ached with every bend in her stride. rest had done nothing for her pain, only giving her sufficient energy to push through. well, that was something, wasn’t it? 

despite the flickering hope the notion of weapons provided, that light was dashed by the rattle of very secure locks on every door chrissy tried. she slammed her good shoulder into all of them; none did so much as tremble in their frames. the windows were barred even if she could find a rock to smash the glass. in the end, all she had were her frantic fists and shouts of panic that she knew, chrissy knew, were more foolhardy than anything else. any number of the nightmares lurking in shadows that she never spotted could hear her and come rushing out, discovering the easiest prey to ever wander in their vicinity. her yelps were careless and scratched like sandpaper over the tender meat of her throat, but she couldn’t seem to stop. she’d come all this way for nothing otherwise. this couldn’t be for nothing. she couldn’t let it stop here.

                               ❝  hello?? please, is somebody in there? i need help, please. hello?? ❞  if only faithful chief hopper was still alive, he’d have come running. maybe chief powell would, too. anyone, anyone.  ❝  it’s chrissy, chrissy cunningham. please, i don’t know what’s happening anymore. help, HELP!!!  ❞  

PROTECTIVE PROMPTS | accepting

@hellmartyr is way too smart for him but he's trying...

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ❝ hey, are you sure you’re good? ❞

ㅤA noise got his attention before Eddie spoke, or Steve might have missed the question entirely - even with the warning, he was confused for a few seconds as he tried to regain his bearings. He must have actually dozed off, which was surprising to maybe anyone except him, because he'd put his sunglasses on and done his best to try to drift off in the hopes that by the time the kids were done with their game, he'd be good to drive them all home. In all fairness, he'd driven in worse physical condition on more than one occasion, so he'd manage regardless, but the less risk the better.

ㅤMunson (and probably others) must have asked if he was okay more than once, considering the question, but he didn't really remember reassuring them that he was fine, of course he was fine, just tired. Hadn't slept well. It was true that he'd slept for shit the night before, which was absolutely a contributing factor here, but the really bad timing on a migraine was the actual problem at hand. Lack of sleep, dehydration and too much coffee to get through the day had all combined with multiple concussions to ruin him once again, apparently, and his doctor was going to have a great time with the 'I told you so', but that wasn't going to get him through this D&D night.

ㅤThe room had been nothing by lights and people shouting, which had made his head want to explode even after he realized he was getting auras and pulled out the glasses to 'rest his eyes' until they were done with their 'boring game', which had been accepted as normal enough that he assumed nobody thought too much of it at the time.

ㅤNow, he wasn't so sure, but he sat up, taking in the room and the lack of kids - most of whom he was supposed to be driving home. "Yeah, I'm fine, where is everyone?" he lied, redirecting the focus instead. If his hands or voice weren't steady, someone would notice, so he had to get his shit together fast.

Meg had been on the road for days now, pulling over every few hours to fill her car up with gas and give her legs some time to stretch. Her focus had been on getting to her destination and it'd caused her to skip a few meals in her hope to drive a few more miles. Now she found herself parked at a decently sized service area, desperately craving something besides cheap black coffee and somewhat stale fries from whatever fast food place she passed along the way. There probably wouldn't be any food that'd knock her off her feet but a burger sounded amazing.

Grabbing her backpack from the passenger seat, she double-checked to make sure she'd locked the car before heading inside. The typical fast food restaurants filled the area along with what looked like a half-assed general store. There was a small area with a few tables cluttered together for people to sit and eat at as well. She walked up to the first place that she noticed had a burger on the menu. Buying more food then she'd probably be able to eat, she paid and grabbed the paper bag before searching for a seat.

@hellmartyr means well, but he didn't brush up on the previous seasons...

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ❝ don’t go poking around this stuff…it pokes back. ❞

ㅤThere was a kneejerk reaction there - actually, about four in quick succession and she hadn't actually decided that she wasn't going to follow through on at least one of them, but she was working on not lashing out immediately as a first reaction. It meant that she sucked in a breath, held it, considered putting on a smile and only got so far as to smooth out the potential snarl instead. "Does it?" she asked instead, putting a bit too much awe into her voice for just those two syllables before her expression flattened. Eddie Munson was a dramatic shit, so he'd clock it instantly.

ㅤ"Listen, Eddie, I get it. I was a bitch to you and your nerd friends and I still don't get any of what you do, but I'm sorry and this isn't my first fucking time," she snapped, glancing from him to the questionable shit that was probably going to poke back. "Tell me something useful or watch our backs."