#fae stress

[eyelessfog]

Hey there, darlin'

[villainessbian]

Concept: most aliens can get anxious, can get scared, can get fight-or-flight. What most aliens do not get, however, is stress. Stress is a weird thing even by human standards. It can build up over time or be something tied to a very limited situation. It can be caused by a lot of things, and it comes in a lot of different ways. But it's a core human reaction, when a situation is wrong, it causes stress until it is righted. And it even affects different people differently!

Cue Human Cassandra, on a ship with her friend and co-worker Human Pauline. The ship is crewed with a mix of species. It's a cargo ship - load up in a space port, unload in another, get news and supplies during their stops, and live as an ever-shifting family as some of the two dozen crew members, give or take, get replaced. Some leave come payday, and new ones come looking for the thrill of low-level adventure, experiencing warp drives across the safer roads of the known universe.

But getting the supplies you need, or want, in stops is never so easy. Humans are new to the galactic community, and their needs misunderstood. Most broad-edibility food is bland for them, but that's okay. A big enough bag of their condiments can last them years. But ADHD meds... now that's less easy to get, the further from Earth you are. And a contract too big for their captain to pass on came up, much farther than the two humans expected.

Cassandra's mood deteriorated, her work priorities out of order, her sleep schedule in disarray. Little by little, she grew restless, shifting moods and gears unpredictably. A few weeks in and she was a mess, barely able to keep up with the minimum her job doing maintenance and running safety diagnostics for the route charting team required of her. While Pauline could help with the mechanical aspects of keeping the ship running, picking up the "slack", the safety had to be double-checked by the charting and pilot teams. When the curves of asteroid probability reached beyond a certain level, several hundred simulations had to be run, time-consuming processes had to be used, to avoid any collision at speeds beyond speed c. Some truly exotic things happened to ships that experienced those, but none of them contained the words "surviving crew." A safe route avoided any probability of collision over .1% and when going faster than light, any choice of course required thinking in 3 dimensions plus relative time to navigate dangerous probability fields in one piece, finding time-specific corridors and accounting for a dozen variables at once.

After she had a breakdown over a path she would normally have been able to find in under a minute, Pauline spoke to a concerned pilot team member:

"You have to understand her, this is a stressful situation and she's doing her best..."

"What do you mean by 'stressful'?" Gabalt asked. The furry little creature stood on two arched legs, and barely reached up to Pauline's shoulder, opening three wide eyes with curiosity and concern in equal parts.

"Things are... getting difficult for her, and keep getting more difficult because she does not have medication to help her brain be efficient. It makes her tired, and inefficient, and as it goes on, she's less and less able to cope with the situation. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets, and that is stress. Getting more tired because it takes more energy to deal with the situation, and less efficient because she's more tired, and things get harder because she's less efficient, on and on until something can solve the problem and the stress goes away."

"That sounds... hard. Do all humans have to deal with this?"

"Well, everyone has sources of stress, but she's got a disability. Without her meds, she gets stressed all the time. Not a lot all at once, but it always adds up."

"Oh no! So she'll be stuck like that until we get closer to Earth?"

"Most likely, yes."

But the most momentous thing to happen this day was not her breakdown. Not an hour later, alarms blared up. The simulation holograms all displayed blinking red masses - the less-travelled "safe route" was not as well protected! An asteroid range had been detected cutting through the border field, and it was in their way!

Pauline froze up, not knowing what to do. Gabalt was too surprised to act fast. All the courses from the ship's library of regular manoeuvres suggested a crash chance of over 60%, and mere seconds to act before entering the field!

Before anyone could react, Cassandra came in running from her corner to the front of the bridge, slamming the warp drive shutdown button. Most holograms stuttered and collapsed, the exit from FTL essentially dividing one or several of their dimensions by zero.

Looking quickly at the few remaining ones and gazing at the screens showing the current outside situation like a large window would have - plus a few critical extra points of data - she adjusted the angles manually while everyone still shuddered from the gravitational and temporal whiplash of suddenly coming back into normal time. Unblinkingly, she spotted the asteroids on the route while the ship was still going, if not at relativistic speeds, still fast enough for a single pebble they met to vaporise the Whipple shields, the outer hull, the inner hull, the crew members, and the hull again coming out if they but grazed it. Confirming the angles visually, she played with the reaction wheels, the thrusters, the gravity drives, to divert the ship's course just enough to miss a collision while not risking any grave injury on board. There was no time to react - if anything showed up straight ahead on the "unaugmented" outside view screens, it was too late to not get splatted. After half the crew had had the time to get thrown to the side or on the ground due to the rough handling, she'd managed to avoid any crash.

Gabalt was reeling. While it was surely not impossible, these was the kind of moves experienced veterans would never wish to attempt, and the margins for error were ridiculously low! She'd saved the ship and everyone on it, whereas she'd been unable to do a simple safety run so soon before?

Pauline was white as a sheet, but this was nothing compared to Cassandra, shaking violently and breathing unevenly.

"Pauline? What is she doing?"

"That's... probably the adrenaline."

"What's it for?"

"It's from stress. When it comes it overcharges the body. It's like the traditional, 'fight or flight' instinct from survival in prey-predator paradigms, it lets you move fast but paralyses thought... it feels pretty bad after a lot of it is released though. Now she's crashing down, must be harrowing."

"How did she do that? And you said her thoughts were paralysed for precision manoeuvres?"

Cassandra's voice came, nearly a mutter: "I just... had to. do it."

Gabalt needed to understand what happened.

"What do you mean you had to? Someone had to do it, but why you?"

"It- it was very stressful, I saw you freeze, and so."

"But... but HOW did you do all that? That was extremely complicated, few pilots -whose main craft is directly piloting- would want to even try doing that when given a choice!?"

"I had to. do it, so I did. I couldn't. couldn't make a mistake."

"This makes absolutely no sense."

Pauline interrupted. "She just works like that. Lots of stress and when people freeze up, humans with her condition... sometimes, surprisingly, function better in the moment than others can."

"Ah. So it's a human thing. of course, it's a human thing. NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE WITH YOUR ACCURSED SPECIES" the diminutive pilot pouted.

And so one more story of the humans doing the impossible spread around. Humans of a subtype, more easily harmed, sometimes unstable and needing help for the simplest things... accomplishing odd, unthinkable, borderline heroic feats under duress none could be expected to withstand - but only then. Cursed, blessed? No story-teller seemed too certain. But the "magical" species never stopped surprising all others. And a new proverb developed: "it's not over until the human says it is".

[woozynewt]

I’m working on a big piece rn so in the mean time take my stress design! I want to add more smaller details like pink streaks and flowers throughout her design but this is the basis!

[moeblob]

Look, I just think it's VERY funny and on brand that I thought of an entire premise of colorful characters for half the cast and immediately drew the only one void of color.

[saintetheldreda]

you know how wendell gets all flustered and startled into silence after em finally fully kisses him. obviously thats cause hes in love but also i like to think its because i bet she must have looked SO beautiful right before she kissed him. she thanks him for the boots he made her with the messiest grin on her face that looks like "yes fuck yes this is something i can USE to get out of this place!" and its the opposite of a charming smile, its excited, but its the most beautiful one he has never seen because wendell has never felt like something useful before, has never known what it feels like to be used by someone he loves, because growing up in faerie land he has only ever been there just to look pretty and kingly, like the sort of whimsical spectacle that everyone irl expects fairytales and fantasy and faerie stuff to be

because like after all its her unyielding belief that the beauty of nature and the forests is animated, has sentience, contains rich inner life and minds, looks pretty only through precise deliberation and choices that MEAN something that is her calling as a folklorist. and of course outside of the novel is the same reason why anyone developed folklore in the first place. that same instinctual reaction to the beauty and the mysteries of nature that says it should be personified and interacted with as a person

so she thinks shes shitty with people cause shes bad at talking to them but all this time she was teaching herself how to love instead of how to talk

emily wilde being a book about a girl who wins and gets the guy by caring immensely about the kind of thing no one irl takes seriously or finds cool (fairies) is a major win for folk culture and im not emotional about it at all

[twis-world]

Reader is not specifically mentioned but they’re there, they are there yall. HEAVILY insinuated that the couple of the hour got together during the war. Reader is a fae as well. Is that all? I’m sure it is…

War is a cruel, harsh, and despicable reality.

It has no favorites, it has no boundaries, it grants no mercy for any of its players nor those unfortunate enough to be dragged into its deadly grip.

It guarantees nothing. No small victory could determine the upper hand against the enemy in a cruel game that could take days, weeks, months, years to conclude. Every second counts no matter what.

General Lilia Vanrouge witnessed first hand the cruelty that such devastation could bring. Hundreds, thousands of lives taken in a blink of an eye, both ones he had once foolishly promised would live on beyond such darkness…and ones he promised to drag and seal into it. Both sides suffered grave consequences, unspeakable tragedies, crippling loss beyond mere imagination…

Was it selfish of him to want to find a light in such wickedness?

Looking back at such a time he would say yes, absolutely.

To form such emotional attachments that ran deeper than any other was beyond selfish of him, especially during such a time where promises made under the untouched brilliance of the moonlight could be broken at any given time. Vows of adoration, of trust, of vulnerability were not to be taken lightly, and there they were throwing them carelessly into the night before testing fates hand in such oaths come morning. The fragile string their very lives depended on, tested through hours of blood, sweat, and tears.

However, would he ever dare say he regretted such an ill guided decision. One made after enduring years of dire loneliness, a decision he made to protect not just himself but anyone else who would suffer the unfortunate fate of ever becoming associated with such a plague known as him?

No.

Never in the hundreds of years he lived.

Never in the centuries of utter bliss he had experienced since then and will continue to do so until his final breath.

As long as he continued to wake up to the sight of his beloved, his other half, his very soul, he would never regret such a decision.

As long as he was free to cherish, to adore, to utterly love, he would never regret such a decision.

As long as he would end each blessed day with the sweet taste of saccharin against his lips, the gentle caresses that screamed of his returned affection, the promises of another day to come where every second would be spent alongside the other’s existence, he would never regret such a decision.

[sae-mian]

[HALYCON DAYS]

[locusfandomtime]

I’ve been thinking lately about how the mlp fandom had “creepypasta” (or just generally weird and evil) versions of all the characters and had an extended universe where they were all fucked up but still friends and I think that’s so funny and I think the hermitcraft fandom should do that too.

Skulk/vex Cub, Geminislay, dungeon master Tango, vex Scar, Ren the King, demon Impulse, jungle Bdubs, Zedeath/evil scientist Zedaph, eldritch horror Keralis, fucked up watcher Grian, Beetlejhost, etc should all come together and torment people as best friends forever.

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Its okay if i create a fae character inspired by your fae eclipse im just not normal about whimsy fucked up men

Yea sure!! All my ideas and Aus and characters are free to draw inspiration from!! Have fun with it!! Im sure you gonna make something awesome!

[fluffer5]

Reverse Summoning

Technically, this is my 7th Humans Are Space Orcs even though this is more of interdimensial summoning...

Anyways, more fun to think how terrifying we can be I guess...

So, I've seen one story prompt like this in the past but forgot where and who wrote it. This one would center more on the "what if we are summoned on a place kinda similar to Earth but seems more magical and is also stuck in the Renaissance or Medieval period?"

Cuz I've seen a post on TikTok saying "What if Earth had rings like Jupiter and other planets? What if those rings would be space rocks due to our close proximity to the sun? Our internet connection would go poof! and even if we have satellites, the transmission to Earth would buffer due to the magnetic disturbances possibly emitted by said space rocks".

Such is why I wrote this asking myself, what if humans are sorta classified into legendary creatures that could do a lot of things despite our weak looking bodies?

So, sorta like the usual isekai summoning but with the fact that they need to put certain "elements" to get the human familiar that they want though it doesn't translate well to our language, thus, they still get to have randomized humans qualities. Example: Earth, time, patience where they wanted someone as sturdy as the Earth, could manipulate time, and have patience for serving them equates to a farmer.

You get the gist of it lol.

Imagine this scenario… you are someone with an abnormal sleeping schedule due to a major project with an approaching deadline. You've been drinking caffeine and various energy drinks to the point that your stomach, liver, and kidneys would cry and curse you if they could speak. Your nerves are frazzled and your anxiety level is through the roof to the point that one wrong move could either send you through an enormous breakdown or a volcanic meltdown.

You were down to the last details of your project, the most crucial moment where you can finally end your torture and pass out on your bed for hours on end when suddenly, engravings appeared under your working area and a bright light was the last thing you saw as you cursed at the world for suddenly feeling faint (a side effect of the summoning) to the point that you felt as if you're hallucinating the bright engravings on your floor because ain't no way you have a shining marker anywhere near your table.

On the other side, a creature with humanoid features and chicken bird wings (nah, just kidding… the summoner have wings similar to a hummingbird) was feeling sweaty from the length of time it was taking for you to be summoned. Other people surrounding them was also waiting in anticipation.

Note that in their world, the longer the length of summoning, the higher the resistance force of the summoned being (yes, we can resist), and this means the greater the summon's capabilities are.

When the children (they look almost like us but due to their constant use of the leylines had certain additional features on their bodies, as featured with the chiken wings of the summoner) finally saw a body drop on top of the large summoning sigil.

They all held their breath as you gathered yourself from the disorientation.

They could see someone whose flesh isn't covered by scaled or hardened by muscles. No signs of any crystal either which is needed to harness the power of their leyline energy. To be honest, the summoned familiar looked as if its on the verge of death (looking zombified from the stress). They feel like you're about to keel over at any moment and instead of a summon, they'd have a corpse to clean up.

Of course, you, feeling delirious at the plethora of unique looking creatures, still sleep-deprived, and absolutely pissed off from suddenly being taken away from your work looked at them with bloodshot eyes and launched off a tirade of curse words that goes down to at least the 3rd generation of their family.

They know a few of our language given that they have attempted the same ritual over the past few years (though depending on the leyline used, time either goes too fast or too slow in our world, in other words it's more of a time travel hotspot).

They could understand words like "intestines" and "murder" and "deadline" and "kill" but the other words feel more different (the last summon that agreed to teach them was a pissed off Russian woman who was inwardly cackling as she incorporated a lot of random words that didn't match her place of origin as she's very happy to screw with people who are wasting her quiet time with her beloved wine).

The teacher though… the more he's looking at the translation orb in his hand, the more he feels the blood drain from his face.

They did summon someone important. Someone resilient and capable. Someone who's been able to go through harsh moments and still smile as they work through an entire cycle of hatred and cursing of their self, life, and world.

The greatest familiars usually come from what you call as "procrastinators".

Well, procrastinators are their own breed of legendary so it's not as if they're wrong.

Still, the summoning teacher felt like quitting that very moment when said summon brandished a sharpened pencil as you charged towards them shouting how you'll rip them limb from limb with a fudgin pencil if you have to.

Violence was one of the things in your mind and spite was the only thing left fueling your deranged soul as you chanted, "You messed with the wrong person, b!tch!" before diving forward at the squawking student who immediately casted defensive shields...

That shield did help deter you for a bit before you heaved, rounded them, and internalized all hate in your soul and stabbed the pointy end of your pencil at their mighty shield, laughing like a wild hyena as you watch the barrier crack open like your last piggy bank when you're left with no money in your pocket.

Their screams were glorious!

.

.

.

.

The school finally banned calling onto procrastinators until further containment considerations on their part after they sent home a crying, plucked humanoid hummingbird.

[innytoes]

missing Kidnapped by the fae moments (dunno if u still create for it) so here i am asking for some crumbs

Okay so you know the fae probably Went Hard on stuff like the summer and the winter solstice. Even though time moved differently over there.

So when the boys are back in the human realm, there's a bit of an adjustment. For one, LA doesn't have seasons the way the fairy realm did. And Reggie and Luke came from places in the US where winter was a thing, so they're kind of adjusting too. Though Luke is pretty fine with it, since he wears a beanie and no sleeves no matter what.

Willie and Reggie kind of miss the snow. I think Willie didn't care much for snow until Caleb stole Luke, who taught him the Joys Of Snowball Fights and Snow Men and Sledding.

Snowball fights were very much only a 'Caleb and the other fae are Out Hunting' thing after the first time a snowball went wide and hit one of the fae it was Not A Fun Time For Luke And Willie for several months.

So yeah, the boys are lamenting how they miss snow and sledding. Making sand-men on the beach is just not the same. Throwing sand at each other is Bad actually.

But, they get the bright idea, they could totally make a sled out of two skateboards and some cardboard, right?

Ray has a Very Bad Day after that. At least there were no broken bones this time but Reggie's on crutches for a week (it should have been more, but well, the boys aren't fully human yet) and Willie is Grounded from Skateboarding for just as long. Ray didn't even take his skateboard away, he just used the 'I'm not mad just disappointed' voice and explained it was unfair if Willie could skate when Reggie couldn't even walk

First time Reggie tried to walk through a wall with his crutches (what? his hands were full and doors are hard to open like that!) he went through fine... the crutches did not.

The boys do embrace other parts of the season, though.

Alex and Reggie really like baking. It's soothing, the steps are all laid out, everything smells nice, and there's food at the end. Julie and Ray and Carlos supervise the first few times just to make sure they understand the oven, but after that, they have free reign.

Reggie is the one who discovers the TikTok Baking Twink and starts trying more out there recipes. Some of which, Alex put his foot down to say no. He already lived through the horrific things that did with aspics and pineapple once, thank you. He has no need to relive it.

Luke of course is obsessed with modern Christmas music. Because he hasn't heard it seventeen billion times before, he really loves 'All I want For Christmas Is You' and he sings it to Julie once, really sincerely. Julie is utterly charmed.

He doesn't get why Flynn laughs at them.

When they try to explain Santa to Willie, he just nods sagely. Ah yes, he says, like the fae. You leave him offerings, he decides if you are a good person or a bad person, and rewards or punishes you as he sees fit. And he uses magic.

They are all very creeped out about Santa after that.

Willie does love the idea of gifts, though. Being raised by fairies, he has a very warped relationship with them, but when they explain that you get people you care about gifts for Christmas, he is all on board. Especially when Flynn introduces him to Sparkly Wrapping Paper.

(Yes, Ray has a conversation with Willie that if he wants things from stores, he must use money to buy them and not ask his crow friends to steal it.)

When Willie starts leaving them gifts, it's at random, in the weirdest places. But the right person always discovers them.

It starts normal enough, with some Fun Socks for Alex. Julie gets some sparkly glitter pens. Flynn gets some really weird soda she's never heard of before that has the same effect as seven sodas.

Luke and Reggie get rocks he found that look like a guitar pick and a dog, respectively. They are just as touched and excited as the others, though.

Carlos gets a videogame. It's a game that isn't supposed to be out until next year. Ray is starting to get a headache but Willie earnestly tells him it's not from a store.

Ray gets sweets he loves and misses from Puerto Rico. He has never mentioned these in front of Willie or any of the kids. He knows for certain they're not available in the states. He is scared to ask.

The gifts only get weirder but just as heartfelt from there. Food appears while Julie is studying that she didn't even realise she was craving. Sheet music for long-forgotten songs Luke only remembers snippets of.

Dogs appear whenever Reggie is sad, and once he's cheered up, they happily trot off to wherever they came from. Ray keeps checking the local facebook pages but nobody seems to notice their missing dogs.

Ray is almost relieved when Christmas comes around because hopefully it will stop the ever-increasingly-weird gifts.

He sits through the kids opening their stockings first. His new 'foster kids' are very easy to buy for, because there's so much they've never had and they appreciate just about everything. And yes maybe he did get them all little puzzles in the hopes of distracting them long enough that he can have a quiet afternoon.

Thankfully, the gifts on Christmas seem pretty normal. He maybe gets a little teary-eyed at the World's Best Dad mug the kids all got him together. And everything was bought in stores with money, just like Willie promised Ray.

Until the solid gold barbecue tongs.

[arthurtristankingsmen]

some quick Artair doobles

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

why are we still here, just to suffer? every day i have to play bg3 durge romances with chars that larian chose to actively not give a shit about

[newtsinboots]

[quilldesignz]

I mentioned during the #hermitswap that my fae designs were a bit closer to the carapace beetle fae style of @filibusterfrog's archfey so as not to be confused with my more traditional fae-like allay and vex, which, of course, meant I wanted to make one for stress, but this was more of a struggle that I thought. human stress was cute tho

[corazondefae]

9-18-24: Processing

I got vaxxed twice today! Woo!

It was my first time ever getting the flu vaccine and I got the new COVID vaccine as well! I'm both hoping I have side effects so I can call out tomorrow and hoping I don't so I don't have to call out tomorrow because I need money...

I had therapy earlier today and it really got me thinking about how much my mental health truly affects my every day life.

My nervous system is trying to heal itself. I'm no longer in an environment where I have to be on edge 24/7. I'm not going into details but a year ago I experienced something very traumatic. I witnessed violence within my family and I had to keep it together as there were young kids in the house at the time.

This experience truly shattered my world. Even now, I don't know how I got through it and I'm still processing everything that happened. I took two days off of work and then went back. Sure, I was depressed and everybody could see, but I was working to distract myself from my terrible home life. Now that I've moved out with my husband I'm learning how to live instead of survive.

I'm in the process of getting an official PTSD diagnosis, which is wild to say. I always felt like I never went through "enough trauma" (whatever that means) in order to officially be diagnosed. Yes, I've experienced traumatic events in my life, but surely that doesn't mean I have PTSD...right? (Wrong!)

I'm also processing my feelings towards referring to myself as disabled. Physically, I'm mostly fine. However, my mental health really does affect my every day life and I never noticed it until recently.

My mental health has greatly impacted my nervous system, daily functioning, relationships with others, and ability to do essential tasks such as showering, going to work, completing my associate's, taking care of myself.

---

Lets go through some things my mental illnesses do for me, shall we?:

OCD - Makes me anxious every waking moment due to constant intrusive thoughts, avoidance of certain places or actions (ex: eating) due to fear of my intrusive thoughts becoming reality, avoidance of loved ones if they are dealing with something that triggers my OCD, spending up to hours cleaning and washing anything I've deemed "contaminated" (especially my hands), constant reassurance-seeking in intentional and unintentional ways all the time, a few times I've started spiraling and almost started to believe I was hallucinating an entirely different reality to the "real" one

PTSD - Anxiety in my home to the point I was taking Melatonin every night so I could leave as soon as possible in the morning, constantly being on edge to the point where the TV being too loud made me drop everything so I could check it was just the TV and not people screaming at each other, remembering traumatic situations so many times, actively triggers my OCD as well so I have obsessions related to my trauma, too anxious to do tasks even in a safe environment because I'm afraid that one day something terrible will happen which leaves me depressed as well, constant stress since the situation was never resolved, constant guilt, I still shake and my voice wavers when I talk about it

PMDD - THE IRRITABILITY AND RAGE OH MY!, constantly talking myself off the edge while in the middle of my workday, work ethic goes down significantly due to how miserable I feel, short but terrible depressive episodes starting around two weeks before my cycle, getting angry at others for no reason to the point I can't recognize myself sometimes (luckily I'm pretty good at keeping the anger in), not having motivation to do anything, have to leave work early sometimes which has wrecked my PTO

---

I think I needed to write that down so I don't feel like I'm overreacting. My pain is valid. My mental pain is valid. And it would still be valid if it didn't significantly alter my life.

I'm doing all that I can to be better. I am so much better than I was and I want to be better than I am now. But I need to allow myself to wallow in my pain as well. I cannot let it consume me but I cannot cage it either. I guess that's what I'm doing right now.

---

Other than that, today has been less productive than I wanted it to be! I still need to go grocery shopping. Too late to do that today :(

I tried doing my nails today but I tried a new method and it did NOT work out well! I'll try again on my next day off.

I leave you all with my latest obsession: Sabrina Carpenter