#Facing Fears

[mugloversonly]

Fear of the Unknown

this is for week one of @softsteddieseptember

prompts: "facing your fears", "meet cute", and "cheesy pick up lines"

As the firetruck pulled up to the apartment building Steve steeled himself. This wasn’t his first apartment fire, but it was his first time dealing with something of this magnitude. A ten story apartment building up in flames and dozens of residents unaccounted for. Since Steve was the fastest and strongest fireman on the team, he was tasked with the top floor.

Thankfully, it was the penthouse so there was only one apartment. As Steve went into the building, heat and smoke raged around him, forcing him to slow down. He found the emergency staircase and began taking them two at a time. The higher he got, the thicker the smoke, but worse than that, there were flames licking the staircase. “Steve to Robin over.” He said into his walkie talkie.

“Robin, over.” Came the quick reply of his best friend.

“The stairs are getting engulfed, we’re going to have to set up the pad, over.” He didn’t bother to listen to her groan, knowing she’d handle it. The rescue pad was a bit of a hassle to set up, but there was no other way to get down.

When he reached the tenth floor, he knocked harshly on the apartment door. “Fire department, I’m coming in!” He yelled. When he didn’t get a response, he stepped back and slammed his heel into the door, splintering the wood.

He dashed into the room and gave it a cursory look. On his hands and knees was a lean man with dark, long, curly hair, crawling away from the door and windows. Steve ran forward and knelt down next to the man. “Hi there. I’m Steve.” He introduced himself. As he assessed the man quickly, he noticed he had a few minor burns and likely smoke inhalation, but was otherwise fine. “We need to get you out of here.” The man turned his head to Steve with a scowl.

“Name’s Eddie. I can’t leave yet.” Eddie turned and continued his crawl. Steve halted for a moment, Eddie looked familiar. He shook himself out of it and followed.

“Eddie we need to get you out of here, the building is going to come down soon.” Steve tried again.

“Listen, firefighter Steve! I get that, but I need to get something.” The smoke was getting thicker and Eddie was coughing, Steve needed to get him out of here.

“There’s no time to get anything, I’m sorry. The stairs are caught up in it, you are going to need to jump out your window so the sooner we can get you out, the better.” This caused Eddie to jump to his feet.

Eddie glared back at Steve. "Jump? Are you crazy?! We're on the tenth floor!" He shouted.

"There's a pad down there to catch you. It's perfectly safe. I promise." Steve reassured the man.

“No! No, I can’t jump.” Eddie's eyes were wide and wet. His hands began shaking.

"Are you afraid of heights?" He asked softly. Eddie nodded quickly. "It'll be okay." Steve promised. Eddie took a deep breath.

"I need to get my angel from her cage before I go." He insisted. “I can’t leave without her, she’s my baby.” Steve picked Eddie up bridal style and carried him to the window, ignoring his protests.

"Where's the cage? I'll get her out." Eddie directed Steve to the bedroom while he was placed on his feet. Eddie opened the window and looked down to see the huge jump pad. It looked safe enough and strong enough to catch him, he hoped. Eddie grabbed onto Steve’s sleeve and pulled him close.

“Be careful with her okay? She’s skittish, especially around strangers.” Steve smiled, this tough looking metal head was so protective of a little critter. “And she bites.”

“I’ll be careful, besides I doubt she could bite through the gloves.” He pointed out. Eddie nodded, the fear still clear on his face. Steve directed him to sit on the window sill before jumping to give himself a second.

“You got this.” Steve encouraged as Eddie took a deep breath.

“You can do this.” Eddie whispered to himself. “GO!” He shouted as he threw himself out the window. Steve watched to make sure he landed safely before turning to make his way to the bedroom.

“Now to rescue a critter.” He said to himself. With the way the fire was going, and the amount of apartments still to check, Steve hoped the little girl would be okay in the pocket of his shirt.

The smoke was getting thicker and he knew he was running out of time. In the bedroom, there was a fairly large cage exactly where Eddie said it was. Inside was a decent sized rat. Unfortunately, it was on its side and didn’t seem to be breathing. A shame, as far as Steve was concerned, but he figured Eddie would like the body regardless. As he reached his hand into the cage, something huge darted towards his hand. Steve yelped and pulled his hand out quickly, barely avoiding the shape. The rat was no longer sitting in the middle of the cage, instead it was being slowly squeezed by a four foot long boa constrictor.

“Shit. Shit...Shit!” Steve swore after letting out a high pitched squeal. He was both regretting letting Eddie jump to safety and extremely grateful for it. On one hand, the hot man didn’t have to hear Steve’s scared noise, but now Steve would have to touch this thing. “Hey, Robin, over” he said into his walkie.

“I read you Steve, everything alright?, over” She asked. He couldn’t do this.

“No. Like physically, yes but emotionally no.”

“What? Why?” She yelled. He hated worrying her but he really didn’t know how to react.

“The apartment I’m in right now has a snake that I need to get out.” He stared at the snake as it slowly started to consume the rat. He tried not to gag. He heard Robin laughing at him, which was just rude. She went out of her way to turn her walkie on for that. “I’m going to give the walkie to Eddie since it’s his snake.” The next thing he heard was some static before Eddie came on.

“Alright, here’s what you do.” He began. Steve was trying his best to stay calm but watching the snake finish it’s dinner was kinda horrifying. Steve listened closely to Eddie and followed his instructions. He gently stroked the back of the snake to let it know of his presence, then he picked it up from the middle. It was a heavy, wiggly thing but Steve held on. “Okay Steve. This next part you’re going to hate. You need to open your jacket a bit and let Angel in. She will likely wrap tightly around you, but you’re too big for her to consider pray. She’s basically considering you a tree so you’re not in any danger. It’ll just be weird.” Steve gulped but did as he was told. Angel wrapped her body around his waist like a belt, with her head tucked under his armpit and her tail around his thigh.

“Ugh. I hate this.” He whined to himself. In that moment he regretted all his life choices. He wanted to change careers, he wanted to move states and change his name, never to be seen again. But he was a firefighter dammit! He was fearless or at least brave in the face of fear. He quickly did up his coat and made his way to the stairs. “Alright, Eddie. You can hand the walkie back to Robin.” He said as he descended. He checked the apartments on the other floors he was in charge of all while the boa was slithering around his body. Thankfully he didn’t have to rescue any other animals or people and he was finally able to exit the building.

He was barely back to the safe zone when Eddie came sprinting over even as Robin yelled at him to slow down. He skidded to a stop in front of Steve and breathed deep through the oxygen mask attached to his face. He anxiously watched as Steve took off his coat and let Angel out. Eddie held his arm out and Angel slithered off of Steve and wrapped herself around her owner. “Angel! You’re okay.” He said to the snake. He removed his mask and did his best to put it over the snake’s nose. He turned a blinding smile towards Steve. “Thank you so much! Robin said you were afraid of snakes.” Steve glared at his coworker/best friend but nodded anyway. “And you faced your fears to save her. Thank you.” He darted forward to peck Steve on the cheek.

“No problem. You jumped despite the height so the least I could do was rescue your pet.” He blushed. “And once I got used to it, it wasn’t too bad.” Eddie stepped in close to Steve and whispered.

“Angel is a boa constrictor, but I have a python you’re more than welcome to hold.” He wiggled his eyes suggestively. If Steve wasn’t blushing before, he’s sure red as a tomato now. They were so lost in their own world they didn’t realize how close Robin was still standing.

“Ugh! If I’d known the Animal Freak was so cheesy I wouldn’t have started watching your show.” Even though her words were harsh, she was smiling. But the words got Steve thinking. It was like a light bulb went off over his head like an old cartoon.

“Oh Shit! You’re Animal Freak Eddie? The guy who has that show on Animal Planet?” Steve exclaimed.

“Yup! The one and only.” Eddie beamed. His show, “Freaks of the Animal Kingdom” was all about the animals that weren’t cute and fluffy. Snakes, spiders, insects, fish, bats, you name it. It was a way to raise awareness for the conservation for animals that weren’t soft and cuddly.

“Huh, I guess that makes sense why you have a pet snake.” Steve said as the two grinned.

“I hate to interrupt whatever is going on here, but Eddie we need to get you to a hospital to check you out and we need to get Angel to a vet.” Robin interjected. Eddie walked towards the ambulance but before he got in he turned back to Steve.

“Give me your phone number sweetheart?” He asked somehow confident and shy at the same time. Steve wrote it down on a piece of paper he borrowed from the EMT and handed it to Eddie.

“Call me?” Eddie promised to do so, and as the ambulance pulled away Steve sighed. He’d really have to get over his fear of snakes.

ao3

[seireasong]

“That was brave, Rayla.” “No. I already told you. I’m afraid of water.”

Exactly. - You may think these two images display growth. And I believe they do; to some degree. But not because she wasn’t already being impossibly brave in the first image. If you boil it down, these two images are actually showing the same thing:

Rayla, after considerable self-doubt and mortal hesitation, literally submerging herself inside her grievous fear in order to help someone. (More to come on this line of brainrot. Season 5 profoundly rewarded 5 years of daydreams and character analysis. She did so, so well.)

[itspkuwu]

Continuing my liking of PPG X EEnE

Buttercup likes dodgeball but is afraid of spiders. Meanwhile Double D is horrified of dodgeball but he enjoys being around spiders.

Friends helping each other face their fears :)

[the-wip-project]

SloMo WriMo: Confronting Your Fears

There’s a voice in my head. And it’s telling me to stop writing.

It makes me afraid, telling me that my writing is worthless, that there’s no point, that nothing I do matters. That I suck. That I need to check my ego, pretending that I’m any sort of expert in a position to give advice to others. That if I post this then I’ll be opening myself up to attacks by trolls. Why even bother? It says. No one wants to read your ramblings anyway. Why not just keep your ideas in your head? Where it’s safe?

If you’re reading this? It means that once again I’ve beaten the voice back and written anyway.

There’s a lot of names for that voice. Impostor Syndrome, The Critical Voice. The Inner Editor. Writers Block. (Yes, I am including writers block on this list.) The Superconciousness.

And like it or not, we all have a version of it in our heads.

Writers who write often and freely are not magically free of that voice. The only difference is that they (including me— most of the time) have learned how to corral and even shut out that voice.

How? Every writer has a different bag of tricks, but it’s not as simple as using a program that stops you from rewriting, or only writing in sprints. That can be helpful, but treating the symptoms without confronting the problem will eventually lead to failure.

First you have to pay attention to exactly what is that voice in your head whispering to you. (And don’t let it trick you into believing that it’s not like other inner voices, and is actually is helpful, or truthful.)

Everyone’s inner voice is unique, but if you find yourself:

Needing to do just a bit more research before you can start (even though you’ve already accumulated plenty of knowledge on the subject)

Endlessly editing a section (often the opening!) and never moving any further forward

Suddenly bored with a story even though you were excited to write it just a few thousand words ago

Frequently abandoning writing, and having a hard drive full of almost done manuscripts

If you find yourself frequently doing any of those things? Most likely it’s fear stopping you. Fear of what? Again, it’s different for everyone, but here’s some common ones:

What if it’s bad?

What if it’s made fun of?

What if I fail in my vision?

What if I offend someone (reasonably or not) and a twitter mob descends on me with pitchforks and torches?

What if no one wants to read it?

The thing is, on the surface those fears sound very reasonable. If you write something it could be bad, or stupid, or boring, or offensive.

So what should you do in the face of all these risks?

Honestly? There’s really only two options. Quit, or write it anyway.

Me? I’ve decided to face my fears and write anyway. I assume that anyone reading this wants to do that too.

But how?

In the end it comes down to awareness, and permission.

Here’s how it works for me. I get an idea: What if it’s like Leverage, but in SPACE!!!(but in space is a common idea I have lol) I start writing: This is exciting! Writing an ensemble cast is a fun new challenge! And then suddenly I feel like I’ve hit a wall: This sucks. The characters are boring and hackneyed. No one will ever want to read it. How would I even market something like this? Why am I writing this? I should just quit. I have a different idea that’s much better anyway.

Sound familiar?

But ha! It’s familiar to me too. I know those negative thoughts are just the fear voice talking. So I face them: Fears? You might be right. It might be bad. But I’m going to write it anyway.

And I keep repeating that, reminding myself that it’s okay to write something less than perfect, that it’s okay if it’s bad, and that I still want to write this story, until the writing gets fun again. And it does get fun again. For me at least. I’ve had enough practice at this that the fears really only grip me at certain moments. Unfortunately if the fears have a powerful hold on you, you may have to battle them all the way through. Even if that’s the case, every time you beat them, they will get weaker.

And that’s it. It’s three simple steps.

1. Identify your fears, and how they stop you

2. Challenge the negative thoughts, and give yourself permission to write anyway

3. Keep writing

Easy to say, and hard to do! (Of course I’m not a mental health professional, this is simply my experiences. If what you’re dealing with is severe and/or harming you, please seek professional help.)

I'd love to know what you do to confront your fears!

[zzuniverses]

You are not your mind!

Realize this and free yourself from your mind's torments.

Full article: https://zzmeditations.substack.com/p/your-mind-is-a-bully-but-you-wont-win-fighting

#mind #thoughts #awarness #meditation #Bully

[namitha]

Anything you avoid in life will come back, over and over again, until you’re willing to face it – to deeply look into its true nature. Again, the only way to know that we’ve seen into the true nature of something is that the story we’re telling ourselves releases. It is not only seen to be illusion; it is felt to be illusion. That’s the choice you have – to be a victim to your own ideas and beliefs, or to feel into them until they drop away.

🌿 Adyashanti

.

[realshityoudontknowabout]

Always wanted to hear peoples analysis on a poem of mine

[promptsforyourwhumpfic]

Whump Prompt #1112

Anon asked:

Do you have any prompts for a whumpee that’s scared to sleep? 

Boy do I have some experience in this department lol. Your whumpee is scared to sleep because:

They simply do not want the next day to come.

What if the injured whumpee needs them? What if their condition deteriorates?

If your whumpee falls asleep... will they be able to wake up? Will they be able to see their friends/family again?

Another day brings more torture. 

Another day brings more exhaustion and pain/time spent laying in bed. (They’re recovering)

They haven’t achieved enough today, and are worried people will be disappointed in them. (They’re depressed)

Tomorrow they have family/friends visiting... they’re not sure they’re able to welcome them. (They could be scared of them/scared of their interactions with their current friends etc)

Something Really Bad is going to happen - they’re putting it off for as long as possible. 

They just want to spend as much time with their love/friend/family as possible. (They're being shipped out the next day.)

[chillwithnea]

urge surfing

“what’s the next step? what should i do” my ego asks.

my heart replies “sit with the pressure, sit with the pressure, sit with the pressure. breathe spaciousness into the chaos, become a loving space, become the calm amidst the storm. give your mind a gentle massage, let it soften, let it melt. the heaviness will lessen, the urges too. the wounds will heal, the noise will be quieter, so that i can work through you.”

[asignalofautumn]

She breathed and wished,

feared the so-alive city,

the dark, the radiance,

the down, the up,

and facing the doorway

she was now at.

She turned to go in.

Note: I happened to finish this poem at 3:33a

Poem 3

Process: Erasure

Source: Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. New York: New York, 1972. 8-9.

[ruminate88]

”There’s something inside of me screaming run run run!!!! Run to what though?? Run to another life?? Where would I even go? I can NOT run back to my exes. They’ll just pick up where they left off and hurt me some more. There is NO going back. Can’t undo the past. Can’t run from the pain as it’s all caught up to me. I have to face the past and deal with it all. I’m not gonna run scared this time. Asking God to hold me down and don’t let me run away.”

[xjunjox]

Chapter 5 is here!

In this one, Miss Nae-nae and Miss Mia finally go out for that play date.

And a little someone attempts to say hello. I hope you will enjoy ^^

[zzuniverses]

The importance of mental toughness in parenting

You don't know fear until you are afraid for your children.

You don't know the meaning of exhaustion until you've spent a few weeks with a broken sleep schedule.

Full article: https://zzmeditations.substack.com/p/toughness-is-earned-easy-life-leads-to-hard-times

#love #parenting #parents #parent #family #philosophy #toughness #resilience #hardlife

[trippytomatoes]

"Patrick, I don't wanna face my fears!

I'm afraid of 'em!"

-Spongebob Squarepants

[sammygramm]

I’m done being the golden retriever in your life

I’m done being the “yes mam” just because it pleases you

I’m done putting my needs on the back end

Done being a slave to YOUR time

Done being scared of what I’m made of

Done with the fear that I could follow your footsteps

Done with the constant jabs of undermined judgement in your eyes

Done with the back handed apologies that are suppose to suffice

Be clear … I’m not perfect either but you’re my superior

Your the one I looked up to

But Your the one I will not imitate

I’m done .