call me a tree cause i'm pining

I think a good idea of a tag game is to contribute one (1) to three (3) other ways Jon could express his fear.

I’ll start

Knitting jumpers with The Horrors™️ patterned on them

Bribing and/or blackmailing chemists to create an “anti-worm” vaccine while telling the chemists absolutely nothing about why this vaccine is needed and what they’re up against

Reading poetry that Martin writes (then annotating it with THE most sarcastic comments in the world + also occasionally accidentally gooey and heartwarming notes)

Drawing bad stick figure images of the Fears and crumpling them up

becoming very aware of spider webs and starting to clean almost obsessively to avoid any bugs from invading

Bad Jon coping mechanisms let's go:

watching amateur animated/paper stop motion films with outlandish cartoon violence because it allows him to laugh at shit that can't possibly be real

when he's really, truly numb from so much fear and anxiety--indulging in the bleakest tragedies to make him feel something. music, movies, spoken word poetry. or he might find a children's book and inconsolably cry for the kid who lost his toy in chapter 1.

sleeping with a tape recorder with a tape of his voice, so they can't take his identity away from him.

gotta include martin's tags because YES:

He started out collecting Polaroids of everyone he cared about so he can make sure he’ll know if they get not!them-ed, but eventually it became scrapbooking and it’s really comforting to go back and look at. He’ll add mementos, pressed flowers, pleasant textures, and sometimes Martin’s poetry or doodles. Martin likes to get him fancy paper and washi tape and just stuff he wouldn’t think to get himself.

Sometimes he needs a very specific kind of stimulus so he’ll sit still in a dark room with headphones and play music really loud.

He brushes his hair when he is panicked because of how soothing it feels (and it causes his hair to look poofy and unkempt because of his curl pattern)

He stares in the mirror for a very long time to make sure he is him and real

He fidgets with his clothing so much that all the hems of his shirts are stretched and have holes in them