feast when you can

as someone recovering from this fear-based mindset, i want to affirm:

- friends who use implicit or explicit threats to maintain social control are not your friends

- communities that monitor your social media and ao3 to surveil you for perceived transgressive content are not safe communities

- the vast majority of people are NOT going to hate you if you make the art you want

- if you find yourself in a friend group that makes you feel afraid to speak your mind, it's in your interest to disentangle yourself from that group as quickly as possible

- real, honest disagreements between friends can be solved respectfully without the use of public shaming

- if you're feeling afraid in a community, it's likely that others are feeling afraid too. support your friends who may be struggling to leave an abusive fan or creative community, and let them know you're a safe person to voice doubts and disagreement to.

- if you're feeling like you'll never find a safer community of people, i promise there are others who feel that way too. it may take some time, but you'll find people who treat you and your ideas with respect. a good place to start is the people who make the type of art that you admire but that you're too afraid to make yourself.

They can’t sleep. It is the images that keep flashing in their mind no matter how many times they try to cram their eyes shut. They did everything. Threw It in the cage dragged Berdly to the hospital crawled to Noelle rolling on their back to show the soft vulnerable parts of them, sorry sorry sorry sorry and they don’t think she bought prank—know now there is no way to convince her of that again—and when they tugged out the thorn she winced but somehow didn’t flinch away from them, after it all, after It. Their hand reaching for Noelle’s. Shaking. Trying to plead run with every single part of them. They weren’t fast enough. Because then It was there and Its words were thorns stabbing their cheeks, Noelle was terrified, Noelle was freezing, please not her hurt me do anything to me leave her alone leave her alone, but they couldn’t even scream by then. Just begging. Rolling over to It. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. Just please don’t hurt her. (Or: Kris tries to get help.)

post-chapter four weird route fic is here! featuring aunt-nibling relationships, terrified final conversations, and just a sprinkling of nonhuman kris, because we need some light in all this dark.