" 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧'."

@paladinslays​ sent:  🌿

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el’s still getting used to the holidays. 

she realizes after many minutes of walking around in circles between the living room and the kitchen that christmas- and therefore christmas parties- require a lot of socializing and talking. it’s one of the skills she doesn’t have and prefers not to learn. it’s just not in the cards.

fidgeting with the fancy glass in her hands (it’s something fruity she can’t remember the name of),  she finally succumbs to retreating to the safest area of the house, seeing if maybe she could kill time until dinner by sitting around in the basement. turning the knob, she pulls it open and nearly stumbles straight into another person, tripping over her heel slightly in an effort to back up in time. 

oh, it’s just mike. she can’t help the gentle smile that comes onto her face, warm and making her eyes crinkle slightly at the corners. 

“ hi. ” el mumbles, like this conversation is strictly for their own ears. she’s about to keep talking, but she notices something slightly above his head- it’s touching his hair, hanging from the doorframe, and she has to get on her toes slightly to even reach to examine it closer.

mistletoe. she’s heard of it, surprisingly- if only because of her teasing friends, and because her only real source of entertainment at home when she’s not hanging out with them all is cheesy romance dramas. the smile on her face becomes warmer, somehow, and she resumes eye contact with him. it was her way of letting someone know they had her full attention.

leaning up towards him, she presses a tiny chaste kiss to his lips, leaving the taste of whatever fruity drink she just had in her hands a moment earlier.

@lcvedriven​ (jim hopper) sent: 43 for spotify 

𝚗𝚘. 𝟺𝟺 - 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚖𝚎 (𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍) ; 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚢 𝚏𝚒𝚝𝚜 (skipped down one due to no. 43 having no lyrics) 

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it could have been worse. 

repeating it in her head like a mantra is all that’s keeping her sane and what’s simultaneously tearing her in half. a weak smile as she offers to go to the hospital with lucas, the way the sleepovers don’t keep at least one of them from waking up screaming, the way the horizon is draped in an eternal stormcloud and every single eye is on her. but they’re alive. it could have been worse.

@partysheart​ sent:  spotify wrapped: #11 🫢

𝚗𝚘. 𝟷𝟷 - 𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 (𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚝. 𝙲𝙶𝟻)

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they never argue.

it doesn’t matter much that she doesn’t like arguing in general. yelling back and forth just tends to make her feel like something has crawled within her chest and won’t leave. it doesn’t really help that it was something stupid and overwhelming, and in her effort to end the argument before it got any worse, she’d snapped something she hadn’t meant to say. 

she’s a coward. when something gets hard in an emotional sense, she runs. it didn’t matter anyway, seeing as it’s only been an hour of her sitting in the rain before she’s back standing outside the house, exhaling a deep sigh. he’d left the window open (even though it was raining), and she won’t ignore the olive branch. 

she tries not to make too much noise on her way back through it, but she tumbles forward due to how slippery everything is, and is forced to meet eyes with him again even if she’s still soaking wet. curls stuck in her eyes, she uses a hand to pull them away, and she thinks maybe for a heartbeat that she should put it back, since her eyes were so red and if his gaze softens at all, she’ll crumble. 

BOLD what applies, italicize sometimes. repost, don’t reblog.

fights honorably / fights dirty

prefers close - quarters / prefers range

chats during / goes silent

low pain tolerance / high pain tolerance

attacks in bursts / attacks steadily

goes for the kill / aims to disarm / fights defensively / strikes first

is provoked easily / provokes their opponent / teases

gets visibly frustrated / shouts while attacking

uses strategy / focuses on the battle / experiences conflicting thoughts during battle / rushes in recklessly / tries to read their opponent before engaging

fights wildly / fights calmly / fights apathetically / fights with anger / fights with excitement

fights because they have to / fights because they want to

fights without regard to wounds / runs away when wounded / hides wounds / takes a blow to protect another

prefers a blade /  prefers a gun / prefers hand to hand combat / prefers a bow / prefers a shield / prefers a personalized weapon  / prefers magic, alchemy or spells

their greatest weakness is physical / their greatest weakness is mental / their greatest weakness is emotional

transforms for battle / fights as they appear

relies on strength / doubts their strength / relies on speed

uses everything they have / proceeds with caution / hides their full potential / exhausts quickly / has high stamina

behaves arrogantly / brags after landing a hit / belittles their abilities

uses psychological tactics / uses brute strength

avoids civilians / strikes down civilians

damages surroundings / avoids damaging surroundings

signature fighting style / makes it up as they go

mastered skill - set / learning their skill - set

fancy footwork / sloppy footwork

messy fighter / elegant fighter

accepts defeat / refuses defeat / begs for mercy

compliments their opponent / insults their opponent

uses unnecessary movements / moves efficiently / barely moves

prefers to dodge / prefers to block

defends their blindside / has no blindside / leaves blindsides vulnerable

uses all available advantages / strictly uses one main method

plays around / holds back / fights ruthlessly / shows mercy

waits for an opponent to be ready / strikes when opponent isn’t ready

fears death / fears pain / fears killing

has PTSD  / avoids fighting

has lost a fight / has won a fight

has killed / refuses to kill

wants to die standing / would succumb slowly

tagged by: @partysheart​

@racointeur​ (mike wheeler) sent in:  ∗ 17﹕ sender  and  receiver  cook  together .  

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el is consistently thankful for moments like these.

no monsters, no fighting, no reason to keep pushing herself to do something crazy. the craziest thing she’s doing right now is squinting at a recipe card and trying to decipher the fancy handwriting of mike’s mom. he’d approached her with it this afternoon, and she’d squinted at him, confused. cooking seems complicated, and wouldn’t you want to do that with someone that would know what they were doing? the closest thing she ever gets to cooking is the timer on a microwave. still, when she voiced that, and for some reason he insisted, she couldn’t really refuse.

she has her curls tied up behind her ears, the card set off to the side, basically abandoned in favor of trying to avoid a fire being the first priority. somehow, if this ends up being edible, it will be a miracle. it would be a lie if she said she wasn’t having fun, though.

@munsontm​ sent in:  ∗ o5﹕ sender  comforts  receiver  in  the  aftermath  of  a  nightmare .

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el was not one to dream, really. she’d read about it and seen it described on tv as a great thing (something could be like a dream, she saw most often) but it was hard to say she’d ever had one that was good. it was always described as a good thing, and that was the one thing a definition could never fix.

when she wakes up with a startle, her body shaking and cold, and her arm is already outstretched like there was something that was going to hurt her, hurt someone else. it’s almost like she has to remind herself to breathe, but even then, it’s hard. every time she closes her eyes to blink she sees it in the darkness of the back of her eyelids. moving her hands, she covers her eyes with them, rubbing at tears and sniffling her way through trying to calm down. it’s never easy.

it’s then she notices the acute feeling of being watched, and her gaze whips over to where the man is sitting, way closer than she remembered. she doesn’t know how long he’s been awake, and how much he might have seen, and how he even got so close that she didn’t notice. it’s possible that it might be the answers she doesn’t like. she grimaces at the thought, trying not to send herself into another panic at the idea that she’s going to have to talk about all this.

@racointeur​ (Noa Byers) sent in:  [ GUARDED ]  sender insists on staying the night to keep watch over receiver who has been in some kind of danger.

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danger was not very unfamiliar to el.

a nosebleed, which to her shock, was very much not a common every day occurrence to most teenage girls, happened basically every day to her. this, however, did not, but it was still not very unnatural. 

closing the gate had left the poor girl in a state. there’s a pink stain above her lip from the sheer amount of cleaned blood, and her hair has recently been washed in a sink, the curls showing back up now that it’s not caked with gel. 

she sits with her head laid back on a pillow thrown onto the well-worn fabric of the byers living room couch, staring at the girl at her makeshift bedside, since she hadn’t wanted to stay in anyone else's bed and had insisted upon it until joyce had conceded. her stubborn nature won out in the end.

she did not know much about noa, even as she’d saved her little brother, in a sense. she was curious- but not enough to ask any pressing questions. she had too much of a headache to form many words. she knows that she’s pretty, and that she’s almost scarier than nancy is now, but that is pretty

seafoam

clear water, milkshakes, crystals, agave, candy dishes, converse, seashells. your essence is seafoam: you lose yourself in dreams and drift away from reality. happiness is easier when alone; your sensitivity has borne you too many scars to risk honesty again. your imagination and intuition help you dive deep into introspection, at the cost of truly unfurling. you are the dreamer. you are the wallflower. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of teal, jade, sky, and sage, who similarly value their authenticity. you are also drawn to the diligent honeysuckle and coral, who will help you grow and turn your thoughts to reality. however, you may struggle to get along with the stubborn personalities of pearl and tawny who have no room for contradiction.

tagged by: @barhd​