#how to deal with fear

[blue-kyber]

An excerpt from Chapter 29 of “Out There: The 1K. Part 2″

[Yune] noticed Will kept a vice grip on the light, “Ease up, Sparky, before you break it.”

Will loosened his death grip and tried not to be afraid. A light in the dark kept the monsters away. That was one reason out of many that he hated the lab; it was always bright. The monsters lived in it.

The darkness needled through Will’s resolve to fight his fear. He stopped. His feet refused to move any further.

Yune turned around, “Sparky?”

He clutched the light close, “Me and the dark don’t get along.”

“Well, keep that light on and you’ll be fine,” he said, “We just gotta keep walking.”

Will nodded, “Yeah. Right. I’m - I’m not scared,” but stayed rooted in place. 

When the kid didn’t move, Yune realized he was dealing with a very real phobia. Will had to be in a continuous state of fright in this cave system on top of what he felt losing Terra. He had to do something to help the kid keep his mind off it.

“Hey. You know, this is kind of an adventure. What we need is an adventuring song.”

Will’s voice trembled, “Like what?”

“Well, what songs do you know?”

He thought hard, forcing his mind to work, “Um, ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game?’”

Yune hesitated, “Uh… culture is going to be a problem here, isn’t it,” he went through his own mental inventory for something easy to learn, “Did they teach you ‘Koonibee?’”

He shook his head.

“Siffon, do you know that one?”

“Yes. Kanera taught me.”

“It’s one I used to sing as a kid. It’s easy to pick up. Just follow along, Sparky.” Yune gave Will a gentle nudge forward to get the kid moving and started singing;

“Koonibee sitting in a cloudy sky,

Koonibee watching all the world go by.

La da dee, la da dee, la da dee dee dai

Oh, to be a koonibee in the sky.”

As they sang, Will’s fear melted away. 

The trio walked through the dimly lit cave with Yune’s low tenor leading the bright melody for Siffon’s and Will’s higher voices turning it into a three part round. 

Terra had said he was a good singer, but he never believed her. Now that he heard how cleanly Yune could carry a tune, and how pure Siffon’s soprano rang through the cave, he wasn’t embarrassed about his own skill. Mik-human songs were a lot like the ones he knew. Thankfully, the three of them weren’t tone deaf. 

He taught Yune and Siffon ‘Row Row Row Your Boat,’ and Siffon taught them a yondi round called ‘The Old Man and the Pibblebonk” but he forgot to ask Yune what a koonibee is.

((I have to keep reminding myself through this story that Will and Terra are 10 (12 terran years, but they didn't age after the experiments). They're intelligent, there's a lot they can do, they're capable, wise, caring, and have skills, and they're relatively fearless, but they ARE just 10 year old kids.))

[revvethasmythh]

actually it must be incredibly harrowing to experience firsthand the sheer abject terror people feel at the idea of Liliana appearing and questioning someone's loyalty to the Imperium. It makes total sense for Imogen to strongly and decisively affirm that she is working toward the destruction of her mother after having seen--and heard in his head!--how Amido reacted to her. No one experiences that level of fear if there have no been previous incidents of horrific violence leveled toward them or people they've known, and having that attached to the idea of her mother? Yeah, I would vow to end her, too

[realbeefman]

stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!

wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end

[synvelesow]

artblock doodles..

[furiousgoldfish]

abused kids getting positive attention for the first time:

Don't know what's happening right now. Complete confusion.

if I ignore this for long enough it will go away

I will not fall for this

I don't know with what intention this is being done but I don't trust it and I will defy it

aggression and hostility

it's too late for this I needed attention years ago, take it back where it came from

attention I've heard of this. never seen it in person

what the hell do I do. how do I react. What is EXPECTED OF ME

someone is interested in giving attention to me? what does this mean?

I'm going to take this in and then I need to forget it ever happened because this is the only time I will get attention ever. I need to remember how this feels for forever.

This is probably a mistake, and this person is just doing this by accident. I just need to wait until they figure out I'm not worthy any of their attention.

I need to take this attention. I can't have it stop. I will do anything to keep this going. Please don't get bored of me. I will change anything to not be boring.

My entire life is now focusing on this moment right here and how do I have more of it.

What if it's my fault when this person stops liking me? What if I say the wrong thing and they hate me? What do I do to not chase this away?

I will go out of my way to do things that will ensure I get more attention. No matter what it is.

I can't go back to my old life, being neglected and ignored and feeling like I don't exist. I now know how attention feels, I can't lose this.

If I lose this attention I will go absolutely rabid.

I felt like a person today. I wonder if I'll ever feel this again.

This person who gave me attention must be special, nobody else has ever seen anything good in me. I'm going to latch onto them like I've never latched to anything ever before.

Is it possible I could be special to this person? That I'm not all bad? That I could be good as long as I keep doing whatever got me here?

I don't think I can repay this attention. I don't know how to make it up. It meant the world to me. I want to do anything to make it worth it.

I'm scared if I keep getting this attention I will bond to this person, and then they'll be able to do anything to me. I'm scared I'll become attached and then they'll get sick of me and abandon me. I don't feel safe receiving more because it puts me in a dangerous position. I should end this but I can't.

[autistic-daniil-dankovsky]

remember this? well. let's go!

both ena and an have pretty famous fathers, and it was always somewhat expected of them to be worthy of their legacy, in some way. both of them were told, "of course you're good at art - you're shinei's daughter!" and "of course you're good at singing - you're ken's daughter!" respectively.

they were always perceived via their fathers, not allowed to step outside their shadow and be seen for themselves. they couldn't be ena or an.

and, you know, for a time, they went along with it. i mean, they were good at what they were doing.

but then... all comes crashing down.

for ena, there's the obvious bullshit that's going on with shinei. completely destroying her. because she admired her father, because he was the reason she wanted to do art to begin with, and he told her to her face that she would never be good enough.

her entire world fell apart, that day.

because no matter what she says, ena wants the approval of her father more than anything else. she wants him to tell her that she's worthy of being his daughter, that all her hard work amounts to something; anything.

but then, there's the eventual revelation that she wasn't anything, actually. she wasn't special.

everyone was better than her.

before, ena was a fish in a small pond, and of course, she was among the best. but now she's been dropped in a vast ocean, and she's small, and insignificant.

devoured by all the other fish.

one of them - and admittedly, the most important of them all - being futaba. she joined after ena, but she proved herself in much less time than her. and, even succeeded where ena failed - she never gave up, even when she was harshly criticised. never regressing artistically. never running away from art.

and there's something else, somewhere deep down - a fear. a fear that nightcord will abandon her when they realise she can't keep up with them. that she's not as good as they thought she was.

what will happen of her, then? she'll be all alone. unloved.

an goes through something similar.

she meets kohane, and she decides that this person is going to be her partner. that they're going to surpass THE rad weekend together, that no one could be better for this task but her.

but when she starts that relationship, it's with the assumption that she'll always be the teacher and that kohane will always be the student.

not in a mean, or pretentious way, no, not at all. simply, an was always told there was no way she couldn't surpass rad weekend, since she was ken's daughter. in her small pond, she was also among the very best.

but then, an realises something, too.

kohane is much better at everything than she is.

very similarly to ena's situation with futaba, kohane made much more progress in barely a year than an has in years. taiga - one of the old RADers, and somewhat of an uncle for an - recognised her potential, and asked to train her. not an, but kohane.

and of course, an is happy to know that! because that's her partner and friend, and an is happy to see her grow more confident and get better every day. because she cares. because she loves her.

but there's something in her chest - something that hurts and aches. she has to face the fact that she's not as good as she thought she was, that she isn't worthy of her father's legacy. that she isn't worthy of being kohane's partner, that she might be holding her back.

that she might be abandoned. left behind to rot.

what will happen of her, then? she'll be all alone. unloved.

to me - ena and an are two kids suffering under the weight of a legacy that's too heavy for them to carry, but that they can't let go of. they're also struggling with seeing their peers succeed where they repeatedly fail. they're all about being terrified of being abandoned because they're not good enough.

they're both confronted by this fact.

and it terrorises them.

[wanderingcritter]

one day very soon therianthropy/nonhuman identities are gonna hit mainstream and i can tell you right now it is NOT gonna be pretty

[topaz-mutiny]

So the episode is over and I am stuck on the giant green glass column that spans a mile and more vertically of this underground city.

Because the first thing I said when it was described, before we found out the Weave Mind (I'm assuming that's the 5 minds) are inside of it, was: "That's a big-ass trammel."

... And then I thought about it.

...

So, what if? What if that's literally what it is.

A giant trammel piercing through the crust, piercing Predathos. Probably one of a few.

But maybe you only need to pull out one to release a god-eater from its binds.

Perhaps the Ruidian flares, said to be ushered in by the Weave Mind themselves, are their attempts to pull the trammel out.

The flares are getting more frequent, more powerful, because of an increase in their attempts, and the aid being given to them through the Ruidusborn and Ludinus.

If it's true, if this ties into the lore from all the way back in the last arc of C1 I'm going to scream.

[see-arcane]

Dracula 99% of the time: What’s up, mortals, I’m here to drink and terrorize you

Everyone: D:>

Dracula going to the zoo: Hello, Mr. Zookeeper, I like your wolves :)

Thomas ‘Gives -10 Shits About Rancid Vampire Vibes’ Bilder: Fuck off

[ofthebrownajah]

Something that sticks out to me from rereading TFOH is that it deals A LOT with Nynaeve's fear of failure and not being enough to help her friends and people and I think people forget that she's deeply afraid cause she presents this facade that she's confident in herself when deep down she's not

[fatedroses]

He laid at the brink of death once more, staring at the face of despair. He remembered the path that led him to this purgatory, and with a smile could only ask:

"Shall we be friends?"

[qangelbluebird]

Creation = The Thing (from the tubhole?)

Primary Protector (Creator (not used but could be)) = Tubbo

Rank 1 Shell = Sunny

Guardian = Philza

Shell (in general) = Eggs

Pancake Shell = Empanada

The Mother of Pancake Shell = Bagi

Duck Shell = Chayanne

Trauma Shell = Tallulah

[gottagobackintime]

I've seen some people say: “Trent shouldn’t have been gay, he should have just supported Colin anyway.” And it's such a weird (and bad) take.

Had Trent been straight we wouldn’t have gotten the scenes we did. Colin could have opened up and told Trent how he felt, but Trent wouldn’t have understood, he could have been supportive. But he wouldn’t understand where Colin is coming from. But because Trent is also gay he knows what it’s like being in the closet, living with fear and dread. Living with thoughts like “if I tell the people I love about my sexuality, will they hate me?”. You can’t get that from a straight ally, no matter how supportive and well meaning they are. Because they don't know what it's like. We need straight allies, we need all the straight allies we can get. But what Colin needs RIGHT NOW is someone who, while not a professional athlete, is involved in the world of football. Knows about homophobic fans, knows that there are a culture of toxic masculinity and homophobia in the clubs. That is why it’s important that Trent himself is gay.

Colin almost got runover by a cyclist in his desperate attempt to run away from Trent at the gay bar. But the relief when he understands what Trent is saying "I must have a good reason for that, mustn't I?" is so clear. Trent is also queer, Trent is safe, I can let Trent in.

And I think some people might read that line as "I haven't outed you because I'm gay too, but if I had been straight I would have" which isn't what Trent means, Trent is using that phrase to be subtle, to let Colin come to his own conclusion, because Colin is stressed out, he's scared. By letting Colin think for himself it gives Colin an opportunity to calm down (which is also why Trent holds his hands out as if calming a frightened animal, he also makes himself slightly smaller by bending his knees and leaning forward slightly). And he does, he realises what Trent is saying and he calms down. It's also an added layer of security it's not just, "I haven't outed you" it's "I haven't outed you because I am also queer". A straight person saying that they haven't outed you doesn't hold as much weight as a queer person saying it. Because you know that the queer person knows how important it is to be safe and to come out on your own terms wheras a straight person, especially an eager well meaning ally might try and encourage you to come out because "hey, it's gonna be fine", even when that's not the support you need at the moment (there are ofc exceptions, both when it comes to straight people and queer people).

But because Trent is also gay, Colin now has someone in his corner at work, who knows him, knows his secret. Who also carried that secret himself once. We’ll most likely get straight allies in the other players and the leaders at Richmond.

So no, Trent shouldn’t have been straight. Because that is not the support Colin needed at that moment. He needed queer solidarity.

[pharawee]

"If I didn't determine the value, you'd be no different from garbage."

[carlyraejepsans]

saw your most recent post about really good fics that contain uncomfortable kinks and i immediately thought "ah, biscia must be reading the mpreg soriel fic" and almost left a reply talking about it but i stopped myself because i realized that would be an insane assumption to make. needless to say i felt so vindicated when i saw you link it in an earlier post.

like. HELLO?

HELLO???????

[captainhunnicutt]