#deep worrying

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Vanessa’s thoughts when meeting Abby..

[deep-dark-fears]

Out out, Mister Goofums. A fear submitted by Lauren to Deep Dark Fears - thanks!

You can find original artwork or commission portraits in my shop!

[wildweirdly]

Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie

(A ramble about my anxiety, death, and my mental issues! Probably TMI, heavy TW)

Today I realized I think about death more than a mentally sound person should, which is to say that I think about it on the reg.

A good example of what I mean: when people don't text me back for long periods of time my brain jumps to "OMG are they dead??" which is unhelpful for all parties involved (and especially not helpful for me!) I also am always worrying about what if the last thing I said to someone was truly the final thing I get to say, like if they died suddenly.

Dying abruptly is also a fear of mine, so I always try and let people know how I feel about them so I don't die with too many regrets. And honestly? The average healthy adult is not ruminating on "but what if I DIE?!" or thinking "my time is limited!!"

Like, I do fear/think at some point in a moment of weakness some part of me that can't take it anymore is just gonna take over and do me in and that's fucken /terrifying/! Imagine feeling like there's something in you that you can't control, and it's one goal is to die gruesomely and/or painfully. And when doctors and stuff ask me "do you feel suicidal" I have to say "sometimes" and try and explain I have some sort of thing in my brain that has a proclivity for getting us dead but it's not a part of myself and the doctors usually just look at me like ":/" meanwhile I'm thinking "listen, /you're/ the ones who're supposed to know about this stuff, not me!"

I recently tried explaining this to Emma because we got talking about gun ownership and I said "I can't own a gun because I'd kill myself." Of course hearing that was kinda shocking so I had to explain that I have this like, primal urge to die and a thing in my brain that's always saying "kill urself" 24/7 and if I had something as easy as a gun I would absolutely give in to the impulse. Her response was "That sounds awful, you need better meds!" (I agree)

And the thing is I don't want to die! I have a pretty damn good life, I love my partner and my cats, all my friends and my crushes, and I'm in a far better place than I've ever been! But there's like a poison in my head, a voice always muttering that I should hurt or kill myself, and people don't really have that, yanno? Office Bob who works a 9-5 doesn't have to sit there and listen to a little voice in his head, doesn't take any meds, has good labwork and actually does not think about death every day, you feel? Probably the people who end up reading this will also go "erm no I don't have that either" to themselves because yeah, it's not normal!

And it's been this way basically my whole life and so far none of the meds we've tried treat it so I get to just kinda live with the fear I'll slip up and die one day! Oh, this is a pretty good analogy actually: it's more or less exactly a Jekyll/Hyde situation and I have no control whatsoever of it. Hopefully that makes some sense!

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[irate-iguana]

By the way, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “Past Tense” (which takes place starting tomorrow) can be watched as a standalone. You don’t need to be familiar with the show or the characters to follow along. It’s also a really, really good (double) episode.

[sunderwight]

Demon Shen Jiu is such a fun idea though.

Especially if he himself doesn't know. Like imagine, Yue Qi finds this abandoned baby and the baby is REALLY OBVIOUSLY not human. But this also enables Shen Jiu to survive being abandoned at such a young age -- a human baby would die without adequate nutrition or care, but demons are a little more resilient. Baby Demon SJ has a way more forgiving digestive system and can move under his own power from a much earlier age. By the time he's a year old he's hunting his own rodents and small birds, and has to be stopped from biting and mauling anyone he doesn't like. Which is most people. Qi-ge develops amazing reflexes.

Why do the slavers tolerate a demon baby hanging around? Maybe it's really not all that uncommon. Demons come across the borderlands from time to time, and are as liable to abandon their kids or die or etc as anyone else. It's maybe an open secret among slavers that demon-blooded kids are a better investment, even, because they can survive for longer on less. The only downside is if they don't ever look human enough to pass as human, because that limits potential buyers, but that's only relevant when the slavers are trying to sell them. For the purposes of having a network of street kids stealing and grifting and spying and etc, it's fine. A lot of the slavers themselves started out as demon-blooded street kids with no other options.

But in SJ's case, he pretty quickly starts passing as human. Mostly because he's quite strong, and he's convinced that he's the same as his Qi-ge, so he makes himself the same. Makes his hands look the same and his teeth look the same and etc. It's largely subconscious, and once he starts doing it, it becomes automatic. SJ forgets that he's a demon in the way that most people don't retain their earliest childhood memories -- although he remembers that some of the slavers were demons.

Then of course there's the question of why didn't the Cang Qiong cultivators notice?

A few options. One is that whatever kind of demon SJ is, it's really good at mimicking humans. Another is that he's only part demon, and like Luo Binghe, fully capable of handling both kinds of cultivation. So once he starts learning spiritual cultivation, even from a heretic like Wu Yanzi, he doesn't seem different from any other recruit with a patchy education on the subject. Anything else odd about him could be easily attributed to his exposure to Wu Yanzi and his wicked practices.

Although full demon SJ is a fascinating idea. (Also, it could contribute to all those qi deviations -- he's trying to cultivate AND "fake" human cultivation at the same time, I doubt Qing Jing's techniques are totally compatible with everything going on there even without the psychological turmoil.) Like I'd imagine Airplane wrote that SJ was abandoned on the streets as a baby, and the system was like "hmm he probably wouldn't survive that?" and then in some nine billionth wife arc, Airplane also creates a variety of demon that can fully pass as human (for some identity conflict with a prospective wife), even to the point of fooling human cultivators and demon-detecting tools. So the system just ties these two disparate pieces of world-building together in order to patch a critical plothole (Airplane doesn't know anything about babies). Which has the side effect that Shang Qinghua doesn't even know that SJ became a demon!

And SJ himself doesn't know. The only person who knows is Yue Qi.

Obviously this wouldn't come up much in PIDW, but it could be pretty funny in the SVSSS timeline. YQY just sitting there through the whole Luo Binghe being a half-demon reveal, wondering if he should say something. Subsequently being the most absolutely chill about the whole demon reveal thing anyway. Like he's definitely not upset that Luo Binghe is a demon, or part demon, and the multiple people who try to make a point about it just run afoul of his impenetrable smile and get nowhere.

Then eventually Yue Qingyuan decides that he should probably tell Bingqiu that Shen Qingqiu is a demon. For like, safety purposes if nothing else. He's kept the secret so long also for safety purposes (even if someone put Shen Qingqiu under a truth compulsion he wouldn't be able to admit to being a demon, because he himself doesn't know!), and he's done tons of stuff to prevent anyone ever finding out (although Xiao Jiu is so talented that he didn't have to do much), but Luo Binghe is the demon emperor. That changes things. If Shen Qingqiu is going to be visiting the demon kingdoms regularly then there's a chance something could reveal the truth unexpectedly, and that would probably be worse.

So Yue Qingyuan sits down and has a very serious discussion with Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe about how Shen Qingqiu is actually a demon, was just the cutest little demon baby in fact, here he drew a picture from memory of what Xiao Jiu used to look like before he learned to look more human, and also how a lot of slave kids and slavers and people who fall through the cracks in society have demon ancestry, some more recent than others, and Shen Qingqiu always retained a certain discomfort around his own kind because of the adult slavers who sold him off, and etc etc.

[smileyobrien]

season 1 siskoisms

[sandflakedraws]

trolls is like my little pony but they're bipeds to me. but the important thing is your having fun

very very true anon. tho it is fun to make the trolls into a different kind of biped.

and-! the statement is extremely on-topic to me, because the more i spend time rotating trolls in my mind, the more i feel this twitter exchange sink deeper into my bones

[bocchidaily]

Day 128: your wishes were too much for her to withstand...

[tzarrz]

to all people who said PART 1 made them laugh - i lov u 💗 this is for u

[little-pondhead]

[this is kind of a messy ramble, sorry about that]

Demon Twins AU, except Danny is loyal to the League.

The League of Assassins is a “cult” for a reason. They know what they’re doing. Ra’s has been around for a very long time; he’s seen every trick in the book and then some.

So when his daughter Talia gave him two, near-identical twin grandsons, he had already planned out their lives by the time the sun had set on their first day living. He knew the plans weren’t perfect. Nothing ever went exactly how he wanted it to. But that was the joy of being absolutely fucking ancient. Ra’s adapted better than anyone. If something went wrong, Ra’s will simply work around the issue and live to see another day.

So the boys were raised as he wished. Ruthless, with sharp blades and even sharper wit. They matched each other in every way, blow for blow. Neither won more than the other, and Ra’s encouraged the competition between the twins. Eventually, the battle for title of Heir came, and Damian won that particular match.

Danny was fine with this. Thrilled, even, for his brother to earn the title of Heir. The boys were very close, and worked well to take down targets twice their size. Ra’s approved this, and granted Danny title of Shadow. He was to be Damian’s eternal shadow, a guard. Both Talia and the boys were pleased with this.

But then came the time for the boys to learn how to live without each other. They’d gotten too used to someone guarding their back. Too complacent and too confident in their roles. Ra’s knew it would happen, and so sent Danny off at a very young age to live with some sleeper agents in America.

The Fentons.

Damian would stay here, with Talia, to learn how to be the perfect Heir. He needed to learn how to fight without the assistance of his brother.

Danny would go to Amity Park, and be fostered by the Fentons. He needed to put his skills to practical use and learn how to live without constant orders.

This was their Test.

Damian did quite well, for a while. Until Talia sent him off to his birth father, The Bat. Reports on his behavior declined in quality after that, and Ra’s couldn’t help but feel dissatisfaction with how the Heir had been corrupted.

Danny’s reports were always immaculate, however. His mask never slipped, and he’d worked himself into the hearts of the townspeople. The sleeper agents, Jack and Maddie, had a daughter who was quite enthusiastic about the properties of the mind, and accept Ra’s instructions to teach Danny with ease. It was the ideal situation.

In Ra’s eyes, Danny was thriving. Damian was not.

And then Ra’s died. The League was in shambles. Damian was at peace with his family, away from the cult he grew up in. He assumed Danny had defected years ago, since their mother stopped giving him reports about his twin.

Then Danny showed up at the Wayne’s doorstep, decked out in full League attire, angry and hostile.

“Tell me, dear brother,” he spat. “Why did you not inform me that Grandfather had died? I had to find out through his spirit when it came to visit from the afterlife!”

Damian didn’t know what to say.

[deep-dark-fears]

Can I pick your brain for a minute? A fear submitted to Deep Dark Fears - thanks!

You can find original art in my shop!

[proteusolm]

Discussed the "would you rather a run into a bear or a man when alone in the woods" question with my friend who is a black bear technician, and I have a lot of experience working in remote areas with a high black bear population myself. She and I both were instantly in agreement that: 1. If I'm in the woods deep in bear country, the bear is simply much more expected and less startling to run into than the man. It would be something we are prepared for and fully unsurprised by. 2. Bear safety is pretty straightforward, we know and have training in their behaviour, how to avoid conflict, what a black bear that is trying to hunt you looks like, and how to maximize your chances of getting out of the situation safely in the incredibly rare case of an attack. There's no equivalent handy step by step guide to respond to a dude attack.

Most people approach the question as a feminist one, thinking more about risk of violence from a man, but neither of us really even expressed much concern about the dude beyond knowing from experience that it is startling and unsettling to run into someone when in a remote wooded area far from any trails or residences. As two animal autistics that studied wildlife management in college and have spent a lot of time in the woods of northern Ontario, we both missed the intended point of the debate, instead coming to a stance solidly rooted in "why would be I be upset to see a bear when I'm knowingly in the bear's home?"

[lunargarden-art]

"you'll slay the ladies with your smile!" *proceeds to smile

[ardate]

Every Boromir hater makes my enormous love for him grow stronger. Sorry you couldn't understand him, I get him tho and we're holding hands and the whole of Gondor is laughing at you

[macadamia-shithead]

YAY YAY YIPPEE 🦑🦑🦑