#cherophobia

based on a fic by @zombified-hoglin!! im only on ch 6 right now, but i wanted to draw avery sleeping with the sheep. obviously, i never drew the sheep because who has time for that? they're probably off screen or something :)

AVERY GET OUT OF THE CHAPEL!!! WHY WOULD YOU GO INTO A MYSTERY CHURCH BY YOURSELF?!?! GETOUTGETOUTVETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUT GETOUT GETOUTRRRRRBSHDBHSHSBDBAHDJSBDHSJD

Im normal i swear………………

Not done…yeah, whoops😅. But! It did get a

Name Change! To Cherophobia!

That’s right! Took ‘em down to the courthouse and signed the docs and—ah whatever, why yap when I could get on with it.

You can now find Cherophobia on AO3 with an updated summary, some new notes for Chapter 1, new chapter titles(!!), and most importantly Chapter 5.

Which leads me to my last announcement, which is that Cherophobia will now have six chapters to better fit the pacing. So no new content tonight because all of Chapter 5 is stuff I’ve already posted here, but now it’s nice and neat up on AO3.

Ms. Frizzle is offering humanity the chance for 1 human to use her bus for an 8 hour period. And she’s accepting applications far and wide. And the story is about the 8 people that are finalists for receiving the 8 hours with the Magic School Bus.

1. Amy the Astronaut wants to use the bus to focus on space and interstellar travel and communication. The FTL capabilities of the bus would boost humanity’s scientific knowledge by thousands of years in an afternoon.

2. Phil the philosopher wants to maximize the quality of life of the most humans alive right now in the fastest way possible.

3. Ivan the immortalist just wants to figure out a secret to human immortality. (Arguing that every problem can be solved on infinite time scales)

4. Betsy the biologist wants to cure as many diseases as possible.

5. Doomer the antinatalist thinks that humanity should all be annihilated as quickly and as painlessly as possible. (The other finalists are horrified that Doomer is even in the finalists list and are scared of Ms. Frizzle and her reasoning to even allow this line of thinking to be entertained)

6. Ray the Politician thinks that all these idealists ideas won’t happen because humanity doesn’t have the systems that will support it. But small changes can be made.

7. Sister Theresa the Catholic nun thinks everyone else is playing God for 8 hours.

8. And Mia just wants to cure her daughter’s incurable disease.

It’s so so good 😭

But it also makes me sad because AI mostly wrote it. I made the premise and have been just floored by all the ideas. But like, everybody hates AI except for me. So it’s not something I can share without ridicule.

That’s my life really. I can’t share I like ponies, or furries, or religion, or anything—because there’s going to be someone that hates it and hates me. Is it any wonder my only real desire is to just commit suicide?

Yeah, there’s good in the world, but the bad far outweighs the good. Death is the only form of peace.

Well, hopefully this doesn't seem too disjointed. I don't know if I love it but it's really hard to write about fears that you yourself experience without it sounding ranty! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Cherophobia: the irrational aversion to being happy. Likely occurring when people feel the need to protect themselves, usually resulting from past trauma or conflict. 

Throughout Eddie’s life, he always had the feeling like the other shoe was going to drop. He could never just enjoy a good day in peace. If things were going too smoothly at home or school then he knew it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. And it always did. He couldn’t let himself be happy because he knew something bad, something to make him feel sad or angry, would always follow.

It happened when he was a little kid when he had a good day at school only to go home and find out his mom had died of a drug overdose. He’d been allowed to color his pictures all day before listening to his teacher read a story. His friend had even given him half of her Little Debbie cake at lunch. But when it was time to be picked up from school, his mom wasn’t there. He waited for what seemed like hours before he walked himself home to an empty apartment. His dad told him later that his mom was a stupid bitch that took too much oxy that day and died. Eddie spent the next several months in a depressed stupor, trying to adjust to life without his mom while also trying to survive living with his dad. He’d never felt so alone.  

When he was ten, he made a friend at school. After months of eating lunch alone and being picked on by the other kids, it was nice to talk to someone that didn’t want to hurt him. But when Eddie got home, his dad was in the midst of a drug-fueled manic episode. In his foggy haze, his dad determined that his curls were a little too girly for a man and shaved them all off with a blunt razor. Eddie went back to school the next day only to find that his new friend wanted nothing to do with him. He’d seemingly changed overnight and it wasn’t for the better. 

It happened once more in his childhood at age eleven when Eddie got an A+ on his creative writing paper. He was living on cloud nine for a few hours, high on the feelings of happiness and accomplishment only to be picked up from school by the police who took him to stay with his estranged Uncle Wayne. His dad had been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder after getting in a fight at a bar. Eddie had to leave all he knew to go back to a small unknown town in Indiana with an uncle he hardly knew after finally starting to like it at his school. Things turned out okay with Uncle Wayne, of course, but for a few months, Eddie felt like his world was imploding. Every single time, like clockwork, as soon as Eddie started to let his guard down and let himself feel happy, something bad would immediately happen to force the walls back up. 

It was his own addition to the Munson Doctrine; don’t let yourself get too happy or something bad will happen. He was afraid of feeling anything too happy in case it prompted something bad. He certainly did not want to tempt fate and made a point to avoid having too positive of emotions. But sometimes even Eddie forgot to follow his own rules. 

Really, he should’ve seen this coming. He’d been too happy these past few months, it was inevitable for it all to come crashing down. He never would have thought that he would be blamed for the murders of several of his fellow students that were killed by a flesh monster from an alternate dimension that could murder people through their minds but maybe he should’ve. After all, he’s never had any good luck so it might as well happen to him. 

But after so many good months, it almost seems like a cruel trick performed by the universe. He was finally happy, truly happy. His grades had improved, he brought new freshmen into Hellfire, he’d scored more gigs with Corroded Coffin performing at the Hideout, and he’d even gotten a part-time job at Thatcher Tire. Eddie was finally becoming happy with his life and now it was all being taken away for something he didn’t even do. He thought he’d been becoming more optimistic, more hopeful but instead, he’d been becoming more naive. 

He let his guard down and was now paying the price. Instead of remaining wary, cautious, of the giddy feelings of joy like he always had before, Eddie had welcomed them with open arms. He knew that the fall would be hard but he let himself feel it anyway in the hope that things would be different. But they weren’t. 

As he felt the tiny bat teeth gnashing through his flesh while he laid on the cold ground of the Upside Down, all he could focus on was the fact that he’d never get to experience what true happiness was like without fearing it before he died. He didn’t mind dying a martyr in order to save his friends, didn’t mind dying in general to be honest. He just wished that he could’ve seen what true happiness was before his eyes slipped closed for the last time (or so he thought).

When he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by the sight of a darkened hospital room. His wrist was cuffed to the bed and his other hand was gripped tight in sleep by Steve “The Hair” Harrington. Steve’s head was resting on the bed next to Eddie’s hip and Dustin was sleeping on the cushioned seat of the bay window. Eddie had gone through hell the past week and he had a long way to go but he had hope that he would make it. 

He had friends, nay- family, now that would stay by his side. Maybe with Steve, Dustin, and the rest of the Party behind him, he could let himself be happy without fear and they could catch him when things inevitably started to fall apart. All he had to do was try.