avgury

[avgury]

no blood, no needles, nothing - ash tuesday

the very next words out of my mouth better be something profound or i’m out i want everybody here worshipping the ground that i walk on even if it’s covered in glass even if i sort of meant to do that

[avgury]

who: everyone @phantasmhq​ where: living room when: day 2, morning, post-scream

the ouija board thing? that was creepy but negligible. and teddy believed amari about it, sure - they’re her cousin, she trusts his word - but still. it was weird, but it was just this one thing. just this one, weird thing, and if teddy really tried - if she, you know, manifested, and tucked in close to romy, and chose to listen to the rain - she could write off a few random letters and names that meant nothing to her, and she could write off the way that the planchette moved, because... well, they were all just freaking themselves out, right? and, yeah, teddy’s read enough stephen king books to know that maybe that’s an insane take, but. what was she gonna do yesterday, really? lose her mind over it?

no. she’s sure gonna lose her mind over this, though. or maybe that’s an overstatement, but okay, here, this is too much: the screaming, the clawing, the dirt and the blood and the knife. yeah, teddy’s read this book before, and yeah, she’s freaking out a little, pacing back and forth, a little erratic, her nails between her gnawing teeth as she keeps her eyes towards the windows, fixated on the billowing clouds and the pouring rain outside. “maybe - i mean - do you think... can we drive in that? because - i mean, honestly. this is kinda - shouldn’t we probably go?” if not for all of the glaring, freaky reasons - blood on the table, devlin’s scream - then for the more practical reason, which is that, well. the last thing they need is to be stranded in the a cabin in the middle of nowhere in inclimate weather. “i mean, is the rain supposed to let up anytime soon? does anyone know?”

[avgury]

Jackie Taylor being the cutest during the Seance

[avgury]

who: open starter @phantasmhq​ where: the half-bath off the kitchen, the door is open when: day one, before sunset

it’s fair to say that romyteddy gate 2022 is getting to teddy, if the hair shears teddy’s holding in her hands as she stares at her reflection in the mirror of the cabin bathroom is any indication. logically, objectively, teddy knows it’s not the biggest deal in the world, or even at the cabin - they’re here for dev, and also, like, jo hasn’t told anyone yet, and surely this will all blow over anyways, right? because teddy doesn’t want it to be bad. she didn’t want to hurt jo. and she knew to some degree that it would be a big deal - that’s a big part of why they hid it. or maybe it’s only a big deal because they hid it, but hindsight is twenty twenty, and they hadn’t wanted it to fuck up the friend group, among other reasons. it’s astonishing, really, how often teddy finds that she has no idea what it is that she should do in any given situation.

but now they’re here, and jo found out, and she’s pissed, and teddy doesn’t know what to do now, either, and it’s stressing teddy out. actually, everything is making teddy feel a little off, from the creepy horse painting in the bedroom to the fact that she swears that when she looks in the mirror, she can see her mother staring back at her. the energy is faintly off, vibrating at the wrong frequency. or maybe teddy’s just facing caffeine withdrawals? but either way, she’s standing in the bathroom with the door wide open, studying her own reflection and pulling pieces of her grown out bangs away from her face between two fingers. 

she can hear the footsteps from down the hall, but she doesn’t bother to turn, instead opting to keep staring at her reflection and say, “what do you think? should i cut them again? they’re getting kinda long,” which is exactly what teddy says every time she’s on the verge of an emotional or psychological crisis.

[avgury]

-

more than once in teddy’s life, she’s found herself in the midst of an unavoidable situation and thought to herself, this is going to be painful. there’s nothing she can do about, no way to avoid whatever about the scenario is so agonizing to her, but she understands that it’s going to be bad, and all she can do is stick it out. she felt this way about thanksgiving with her family, she felt this way about the econ class she wound up stuck in sophomore year, and she most certainly feels that way now. 

this trip is going to be painful. teddy knows that, and she’s not completely sure there’s any way to avoid that fact. she had been looking forward to it, honestly, but that was before jo found out about teddy and romy, and everything immediately became awkward and miserable between them. the ride here was painful and tense, and teddy spent the whole time pressed against the door, trying to pretend she was anywhere else. this is gonna suck, and there’s nothing teddy can do about that, because the important thing here is supporting dev, right? 

so teddy’s gonna force a smile and try and make the best of this, or whatever, and she’s gonna have to avoid romy to some degree so as not to rub it all in, and she’s gonna write a script in her head of the best way to apologize to jo, though teddy’s not completely certain she did anything wrong, really. or she did, but can she be blamed, exactly, for loving romy? like, seriously. sure, teddy doesn’t want jo to feel weird about her two roommates having a relationship, but it’s not like teddy ever meant to hurt her. 

so what can teddy do? try and enjoy the trip without spurring any further drama, and try not to make it strikingly obvious that she and romy have something going on. except, well, that’s easier said that done, because how the fuck can teddy just avoid romy when she feels like she’s drawn to her by some kind of magnetic force, or something? maybe that’s why teddy winds up wandering in the kitchen after a few minutes of hiding away in a deserted hallway, trying to convince herself that everything will be fine. 

“wine already, hmm?” teddy teases, sly grin pulling at her lips as she strides into the kitchen. she looks around - no sign of anyone. okay, well, if nobody’s around, then they haven’t got anything to hide, right? teddy makes her way over to romy and wraps her arms around romy’s shoulders from behind, pressing a quick peck to her cheek. “i mean, i get it. pretty sure i’m gonna need it to get through... y’know, this weekend,” teddy says, pulling away and giving romy a wry smile. “let’s see...”

teddy’s hardly any taller than romy is, but she wants to be heroic, here, so she bites down on her bottom lip and crawls up onto the counter, balancing precariously as she reaches for the top shelf. her hand brushes against the dusty shelf for a second before she procures the corkscrew, victorious. “here we go!” teddy beams, slowly lifting herself back down to the ground and holding out the corkscrew for romy, victorious. 

who: open starter @phantasmhq ​

when: day one, shortly after arrival - but post seeing which room and setting their stuff done

where: the kitchen (but maybe after dev's starter)

To say the trip and the destination weren't what romy was expected would be an understatement. What she had only ever pictured as her beasties laughing on the road together, singing songs and making dumb jokes, turned out to be much more stressful than she pictured. Between making sure everyone was comfortable, trying to look not too in love with teddy, hoping to avoid staring at jo while she squirmed trying to think of ways to fix that, she was thankful amari didn't have a complicated relationship with her yet. The cabin was much larger than romy expected and since they last saw another person everything seemed like it came from a different time. Dev's cousin was there and he seemed nice, she did notice that he referred to the cabin as a she, which people do to cars but cabins? Should she also call the cabin a she, out of respect? Either way she made sure to smile lots and say thank you before he left and they made their way in.

That should've been the end of anxiety but whether by habit or something else the housemates were back, and sharing bunk beds. If she was less selfish and gay, romy may have volunteered to take the top bunk to save the other two the awkwardness. But teddy was there, and romy wanted to cuddle, and that horse was creepy as fuck.

Knowing that bedroom was not somewhere she wanted to kill time and that literal a crumb of socializing could be the perfect distraction from all....that, she made her way to the kitchen. People flocked to kitchens so she figured she could plant herself there until others popped in. It was retro like the other rooms, and the cupboards were nearly empty but there was also this charm about it, and it was nice to imagine devs family all gathered around, the whole room bustling with life.

She was checking out the dust situation in the pantry but found that whatever was on the top shelf, if anything, was a mystery because she wasn't that tall, when she sensed someone else in the room she turned quickly and spoke with the excitement one might expect when their puppy greets them at the door. "Hey! Can you see up there? I forgot a corkscrew and I know some wine made the trip."

[avgury]

↳ picking theme songs is something that can be so personal

                                                                                        LISTEN HERE.

songs teddy relates to:

mitski - townie

there’s a party and we’re all going and we’re all growing up somebody’s driving, and he will be drinking and no one’s going back ‘cause we’ve tried hungry and we’ve tried full and nothing seems enough so tonight, tonight, the boys are gonna go for more, more, more and i want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony and i want a kiss like my heart is hitting the ground i’m holding my breath with a baseball bat, though i don’t know what i’m waiting for i’m not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be!

genius lyrics describes this song as “capturing the coming-of-age attitudes of anarchy against parental principles,” which, yeah, that just about sums it up. but really, i think the desperate, erratic tone of this song captures the fact that teddy is constantly trying to reform the perspective of her life to make it somehow meaningful, because she’s so certain that she’s missing something; the lyrics “we’ve tried hungry and we’ve tried full but nothing seems enough” along with the lyrics “change is gonna come but when, when, when,” really illustrate how teddy feels perpetually unsatisfied, always living in the future as she tries to picture a life that will be right, where she’s doing something that matters, like a main character. equally as important is the lyric “i’m not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be,” which is perfect for teddy, who has so violently and anxiously rejected the perfectly normal lifestyles of her family members, at least mentally. she could not picture anything worse than a life where she’s exactly what her parents want her to be: simple and quiet and married and unextraordinary.

odie leigh - crop circles

all these words of mine i’ve said before i’m running out of things to say, silence i can’t endure every time, i think i’m done but yet, another crop of memories, it springs up in my head and i, i don’t think i’ve changed no, and i’m too scared to stay the same so my carpet’s got crop circles, my carpet’s got crop circles these days

i think this song really captures a lot of teddy’s overall anxieties - she absolutely doesn’t want to stay the same, and she’s constantly consumed by the idea that she’s somehow running out of time to become the person that she wants to be. she’s felt this anxiety for so long that it’s familiar and agonizing, and she quite literally does run crop circles into her carpet. she paces around for hours on end, back and forth, back and forth, with some kind of unplaceable restlessness she doesn’t know how to cope with stirring inside of her.

a song that captures teddy’s relationship (with romy):

beach bunny - entropy

you’ll get over it in a few months see the way that i blush when our lips start to touch and i’m emotional thinking about why i had any doubts from the words pouring out i can’t exhale, but i can’t hide the letters in my bedroom, the way my heart’s in bloom ‘cause somebody’s gonna figure me out it’s what i am, it’s what i was, it’s what i wanna be come yeah, somebody’s gonna figure us out and i hope they do, ‘cause i’m falling for you

this extremely slay song is all about a secret relationship, so what could be more fitting for teddy and romy? if you go and look at the rest of the lyrics of the song, it’s pretty clear (at least to me) that the people in this song were friends before eventually becoming lovers, and i’m like pretty seriously sure that it has to be about gay people just based on all the nods to internalized homophobia. this song fits teddy and romy especially well because of the line “somebody’s gonna figure us out, and i hope they do, ‘cause i’m falling for you.” i don’t actually think either of them wanted their secret relationship to be found out - it was secret for a reason, and anyways, teddy thought it was romantic - but i do think there’s something to be said for loving someone so much you want to shout it from the rooftops. i love the lyric “i can’t hide the letters in my bedroom, the way my heart’s in bloom” firstly because teddy has absolutely written romy at least one long-winded love letter, and secondly because i really don’t think teddy has the easiest time trying to hide her feelings for romy, because she loves her so much, and it’s so hard for her to not let her face betray that. like, her heart is in bloom, guys.

group theme song:

creedence clearwater revival - bad moon rising

i see the bad moon a’rising i see trouble on the way i see earthquakes and lightning i see bad times today don’t go round tonight well, it’s bound to take your life there’s a bad moon on the rise

this one pretty much speaks for itself, i think, but i will add that in the book the shining by stephen king, when wendy is driving, she hears this song playing as some sort of omen. that seems relevant to me because i do kind of get the shining vibes from phantasm; for example, the idea of the spirits that are tethered to a certain place reaching out to someone (jack torrance, or the saboteur in phantasm) and making them do things they wouldn’t otherwise do to people that they love is very tethered.

a song that teddy has a special connection to:

lcd soundsystem - all my friends

you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again though we’re running out of the drugs and the conversation’s winding away i wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of life and to tell the truth, oh, this could be the last time so here we go, like a sail’s force into the night and if i made a fool, if i made a fool, if i made a fool  on the road, there’s always this and if i’m sewn into submission, i can still come home to this you forget what you meant when you read what you said and you knew you were tired, but where are your friends tonight? where are your friends tonight? if i could see all my friends tonight, if i could see all my friends tonight

this song is teddy’s hype-up song, especially during her senior year so far. the first bolded lines emphasize the way that teddy’s so caught up in planning everything and has trouble living in the present, but ultimately it’s her friends who bring her back down to earth and make everything worthwhile. the line “to tell the truth, this could be the last time” absolutely is referring to the fact that this trip is kind of their last huzzah with things being the way that they have been for the friend group. this song is so important to teddy because she honestly probably walks around late at night and has main character moments to it. i also think her dad was a big fan of lcd soundsystem, and he used to play it in the car when he drove teddy to school in the mornings. it’s kind of the only thing they have in common, so it means a lot to her and reminds her of him. if she hears it when she’s drunk she’ll start crying about how much she loves her friend.

the spooky 9 theme song:

lala lala - when you die

and if i could, i’d try again i’d predict what was ahead at the bottom of what made it stop i did such a real bad job and if i could, i’d do better save my friends from all this hurt take a picture of your brother, sorry for not leaving faster crashing cars on icy freeways keep my friend safe now and always turn the lights off, keep the bills low keep my friends safe, keep my friends close keep my friends safe night and day keep my friends safe now and always

i actually think everything about this is kind of self explanatory, even down to the title. the song as a whole is about death and trying to prevent it, and about wanting to keep your friends safe from anything bad that might come their way. since the spooky nine formed their friendship as the result of a dangerous, frightening situation, i kind of feel like to some degree, unity and safety has always been an emphasis in their group? and i’m not trying to godmod anyone’s characters and i’m also not trying to say that they’re, like, overly cautious, because i know that most of them aren’t. i just mean that i think it’s possible that looking out for each other was especially important to them, which makes this song fitting; on top of that, with the upcoming events that will no doubt put them in danger, i think a song that repeats the wishes to keep one’s friends safe makes a lot of sense. they have no way of knowing what’s coming for them this weekend, hence the lyric “i’d predict what was ahead,” but they ultimately just want everything to be okay, and for them all to stay safe. i think as her mun, i can tell you teddy especially wants this - for everyone to be happy and safe together, enjoying one another’s company.

[avgury]

PHANTASMHQ: TASK TWO

cursed personality quizzes<3

which member of the scooby gang are you?: velma

which unhinged horror lady are you?: needy lesniecki

which gay shakespeare character are you?: beatrice (much ado about nothing)

what would be your familiar if you were a witch?: salamander

which plushie are you?: lemon plushie

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INSIDE THE PHONE OF : TEDDY AUGURY

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why am i like this - orla gartland

maybe i’m an old soul trapped in a young body maybe you don’t really want me there at your birthday party i’ll be there in the corner thinking right over every single word of the conversation we just had

so why am i like this? why am i like this? why am i like this? why am i?

oh, it’s like i’m looking down from the ceiling above never in the moment, never giving enough let’s go out and shout the words we never said i’ve got my mistakes on a loop inside my head

[avgury]

PHANTASMHQ: TASK ONE

what’s in your bag?

teddy was distracted as she packed; she tucked the necessities in her bag, focusing more on what books she was going to read than about what clothes she’d need. still, though, pictured above: her denim jacket she’s got on basically most of the time.

clothes

i won’t go into heavy detail because i kind of hate writing out an exact list but just understand that teddy has a weekend’s worth of clothes plus a little extra. it’s spring, but teddy’s always cold, so think warmer clothes: sweaters, button-up shirts, jackets, especially her denim jacket, which she wears pretty much always. it’s a staple outfit and has one or two pins on the pockets (something literary, something that’s a flower enamel pin), but not an excess. she’s got an nyu hoodie that she’s frequently seen sleeping in or lounging around in. she wears yellow high top converse, and she’s got an assortment of jewelry gifted to her over the years - dainty golden rings, small chain necklaces.

toiletries

again, just assume teddy’s got everything someone would need for a weekend away - deodorant, burt’s bees chapstick, lavender vanilla shampoo, pink grapefruit body wash, body moisturizer, facial cleanser, make up wipes (though she didn’t bring makeup. she wears it, but not for a weekend in the woods. she’s staying natural now!) she brought her electric toothbrush, and she flosses religiously. she brought aloe, but not sunscreen, a common and often fatal mistake of hers as a slightly tanner than pale (tm) girlie. she’s got about a billion pounds of bug spray, though!

wallet

her debit card, her beloved library card, 80 dollars cash, her plymouth state university student ID, 80 dollars cash, and a starbucks gift card with 12 dollars left on it, given to her on her 21st birthday by her mom.

misc

teddy’s brought both tums & advil, because she’s a headache tummyache girlie. she brought an assortment of books - the topeka school by ben learner, leave the world behind by rumaan alam, franny and zooey by JD salinger. she never, ever leaves home without an assortment of things she can put in her hair - 90′s hair clips, barrettes, scrunchies. she hates her hair in her face, it’s up all of the time.

[avgury]

— and you knew you were tired, but where are your friends tonight? (if i could see all my friends tonight...)

basics.

full name: theodora faith augury  nickname: teddy  face claim: ella purnell  age: 21  gender: cis woman  pronouns: she/her  sexuality: lesbian  hometown: ellsworth, maine  birthday: september 12, 2000  zodiac: virgo sun, pisces moon, aquarius rising, libra venus  mbti: enfp  ennagram: 3w2  positive traits: driven, empathetic, imaginative, intuitive, dreamy, ambitious, kind, willing negative traits: wistful, pretentious, flappable, self-righteous, inattentive, affected, preoccupied, judgmental  major: english

more info.

teddy’s the youngest of three. she comes from boredom and suburbia. her parents (a stay at home mom, a dad in a dull, unfulfilling office job) had teddy’s older siblings (will, 27, and lizzy, 26) on purpose, then had teddy five years later on accident. she was named after some long-dead great aunt, or whatever. she’s heard the story a handful of times, never really absorbed it. she’s teddy-of-the-top-bunk. teddy-of-hand-me-downs. teddy-of-perpetual-restlessness. she probably first thought i need to be anywhere but here for the first time one morning before second grade or whatever, when she was masticating her cereal while running her finger over the spine of her library book (fifth-grade reading level, not that it meant much to anybody but her and the librarian.) mundanity was her biggest problem, and she hated that her problems were mundane. she hated what felt like the inherent helplessness that came from everyone in her home being bigger than her and older than her and not listening to her any time that she spoke. 

maybe she thought she was better than everyone some of the time, with the way she wanted more and everyone else seemed content with what teddy deemed completely, agonizingly boring and unfulfilling existences. is being unhappy the same thing as being smarter than everyone around you? is constant discontent the price that you pay for having open eyes? she felt (still sometimes feels) like nobody gets it, that nobody understands her, (though of course it’s occasionally occurred to her that maybe she doesn’t understand anybody else.) 

she’s grown out of a lot of this now. she’s not so superior anymore, she isn’t twelve. it’s just that she’s stuck on this desperate restlessness, this need to see something, be someone, do something, not that she ever knows exactly what. she loves literature. she wants to make an impact. she’s deeply wistful and pretentious. she’s directionless. she’s kind. 

she’ll die if she sits still. she can’t handle the mild suburban discontent. on family holidays, she’d see her mom’s sibling - intelligent, an academic - and convince herself she’d been born on the wrong half of the family as she sat on the floor with her cousin amari and they played legos together while teddy’s mom made the turkey in the kitchen. 

teddy kind of always feels out of place, trying to figure out how to inhabit each space she enters, but she’s probably just taking everything too seriously. her room is simple because she’s so focused on how she’ll one day live that she forgets that she’s actively living now. that’s a big problem of hers - she’s always in the future, sometimes in the past, barely ever in the present - except when she’s with romy, who’s always been able to ground her, though admittedly even that relationship is colored by the fact that teddy thinks a secret relationship is so totally literary and romantic, right? 

the fire affected teddy deeply, and she didn’t deal with it in a real way. she narrated her traumas and fears in her head like a book, she wrote pages and pages describing the experience, she thought oh, here’s something serious that finally happened to me. here’s something exciting. like the fear only functioned as an interesting back story for her, or something, because she didn’t know how else to deal with it otherwise. still, she decimates her nails by chewing on them when she sees a lit candle. still, she bails on the summer bonfires to ready poetry. 

she’s determined. she’s yearning. she romanticizes every aspect of her life, or dramatizes the rest. everything is the biggest deal in the world to teddy. she has this controlling streak to her - writing everything out like it’s a book in her head - but she forces herself to abandon plans and inact spontaneity and do things she’d rather not do simply for the story of it all, because that’s important to her, too. 

she wants to experience everything the world has to offer. she’s a little sister. she’s the baby of the group. she’s a little bit annoying. she’s extremely kind and loves her friends more than anything - how remarkable to finally find somewhere you belong after years of belonging exactly nowhere. though in a way she’s extroverted (she loves to go places, do things, spend time with people), she’s always seen herself as this sort of solitary being because she can’t get out of her own head. she’s so convinced that she’s independent by nature, but it’s her friends who pull her back down to reality. 

etc.

pinterest / spotify playlist / birth chart

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[avgury]

[avgury]

As a teenager, you were looking for a dramatic life. Where is my dramatic life? As if things weren’t dramatic enough. And you were writing your own script in your head as you walked down the street.

Bruce Springsteen on Born to Run  (via brucespringsteen)

[avgury]

… the sheer bigness of the world made me feel lonely to the bone. The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.

Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief (via asphodelic)

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Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things

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tag dump !