#I fill up my punch card and get a free sundae

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

This is gonna be a long post, but... I'm coping with some thoughts on being, well, an Alter. I just wanted to get it all out in case I don't get to front for a while, and also because I don't want to sleep yet. So, without further ado...

I heard someone call me by my own name for the first time today, and got so emotional afterwards I ended up crying. It was my therapist, who I officially introduced myself to for the first time. At the start of the day, he was only the third person to know outside of one friend and my roommate. By the end of today, around ten people know, and I haven't really encountered any doubt, which I guess is a good thing?

I honestly never expected to get this far. I've missed so many years where I've barely ever fronted, to the point it just got confusing whenever it happened. How do you explain to someone that you're suddenly dysphoric in the complete opposite way, or that you can't remember how to do your job? How do you explain to someone you'll probably need to ask their name on three separate occasions before you can consistently remember it, when you're not even sure why?

Theeen the long run up to our breakdown last year started. I tend to front more when there's a lot of stress, which doesn't exactly help things when you then have to figure out what the hell you're even doing, but only being around one or two days a month doesn't really make for a very firm identity, even if I used to be the host for most of the teenage years. Well, most people don't react well to not controlling their thoughts half the time. Less so when they start to remember that, well... Kay's the most recent one of us. Hell, I'm not the original, either, but my social skills aren't exactly the best, so I got written off as a hallucination.

Then Kay hurt herself, and we ended up in a psych ward for a while. There were other things happening, too, like the whole adrenal gland fucking up because that thing burned out from overuse, we think. (What, a system with lots of trauma? That unpossible!) Point being, we were fucked up, and the more fucked up we got, the more I started coming to the front. It was just hard to articulate it right, because surely it couldn't be a disassociative disorder, right?

Yeah, my psych'd talked about CPTSD, and every time I tell one of my childhood stories as a joke everyone gets reeeeal quiet and says things like "Oh my god, I'm so sorry that happened to you" and stuff like that, but there were only a few times I got beat. I only got shot with an air rifle twice, and it only broke the skin once, and two rounds of conversion therapy just left me with a phobia of religious figures and a need to know where the door was to any given room, but it wasn't like I was traumatized or anything, right?

Back to the ward, I remember not being entirely sure how long I'd been there the first day, but some of the other days, I kept trying not to sleep because I had this indescribable feeling that I wouldn't be the same when I woke back up. (there was a fucking reason for that, god I was in denial.) So things got vague for a bit, the adrenal issues were causing some hallucinations, which just fed into the belief that I wasn't, you know, a real person.

And then, about five days into this, me and Kay disagreed harder than we had before, which was the first time in a while there'd been such a stark line between us when it's usually something like a spectrum. See, Kay's usually a bit of a pushover. Nice to a fault, just quietly going along with an ineffective treatment plan because a five minute psychiatrist appointment each morning isn't really long enough to figure anything out, so, uh... I made a suggestion.

Just leave. Despite the self harm, this was a voluntary commitment, we could just leave. She couldn't bring herself to ask. Okay, don't say anything and just ram the door. She thinks it'd hurt because they were locked. So I say grab a keycard from someone, but she watched them restrain someone the day before, so I started losing it and just suggesting getting violent, because, well... last time I was this dominant was when dealing with a meth addicted stepdad who had a habit of hurting my mom, so maybe I had a shitload of anger to get out that I wasn't coping with very well.

Well, it turns out that, if two sets of thoughts are butting heads like that, it gets a little hard to tell which ones are yours anymore. So, all this starts bleeding into her inner monologue, she interprets it as some sort of demonic possession (I was not helping matters) aaaaand asked one of the nurses to be sedated with everything they had.

Yeeeah... we're pretty sure I started as a trauma response, which... yeah, no shit. Still it just... wasn't fun being me, or productive or anything, so I just kind of stayed quieter. Inpatient ended, and a lot of it's just a blur. I know the little fainting spell we had on intake became a recurring thing, and I'm pretty sure running out of cortisol regularly and substituting adrenaline is probably why I didn't just go fully dormant again.

The thing I've learned with OSDD (the low calorie diet alternative to DID) is that there's a bit of bleedthrough. Lines aren't quite as strict, so even though memories do get fucky sometimes, it's not always easy to tell when a switch happens until it's far enough in one direction to make recalling things hard. So I think I was still there somewhere; we bought a binder despite Kay being transfemme, finally donated like two and a half feet of hair, and basically just rationalized it as being more butch as we got more comfortable in being recognized as a woman.

I know there were a few times I just felt insanely dysphoric, or angry out of nowhere, which... yeah, after that inpatient visit, Kay basically walked back in to a hostile as fuck work environment, I learned my lesson about suggesting punches to the throat from earlier, and uh, oh yeah, my dad died by suicide. Y'know, the one who didn't have a giant record of traumatizing us.

I didn't realize this until December, nine months after it'd happened. I have to dig for memories I wasn't really around for, it doesn't come immediately, but I tend to pop up to absorb some insults from mom over the holidays, so I drove up, realized why I wasn't visiting dad this time and just... broke down. Stress vomited in the bathroom, too. Didn't keep a bite of food down the whole day.

Obviously, I wasn't feeling very well. I hadn't slept much, either, but rather than sleep in a recliner in my mom's house, I just turned around after exchanging presents, made the whole five hour trip back in one go, and when I got out of my car, I realized I'd been up for forty hours because I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye, but just... couldn't sleep still.

I was home alone, so I took the time to just... break down until I felt like I could sleep, then sat in my bathtub aaaaand... there were three of us. Like, I said the lines are a lot more defined when there's a lot of stress, right? Well, sleep deprivation seems to really be the only time all our internal monologues can coexist. Also I downed an edible, but it hadn't had time to really kick in yet.

So there was me, then Kay (who was stressing because her last conversation with dad was about the psych ward stay), then the original, core one of us that we've dubbed Alice, who I can only describe as the kid who doesn't know why mom's hitting her and won't remember in the morning. I think I kept asking Kay if this is how she wants to be, but we got a little distracted with the other one who, uh... was a fucking surprise?

But again... we were fucking delirious and slowly getting high enough to finally sleep for about 14 hours. It wasn't until she was describing it to the same therapist (with the preface "Obviously I don't have OSDD/DID") that he was like "Actually, that sounds exactly like what that is." and that was the theme of the session.

There was still a bit of denial, though. I mean, I was an absolute dickwad who only came out when things were going terribly wrong, so it felt like the best thing to do was to hunker down each time and hope a nap would hit the reset button.

I'd occasionally talk with my friendly neighborhood @lizardywizard who helped field possible names, since I was still using our deadname, and it seemed like another little spur in everything going smoothly.

Then this week, there was an electrolysis session that was a looot more painful than it should have been, and I was fronting again by the end of it. Then woke up, still fronting. Then another day. Then Friday wasn't for a bit... and then someone kept startling me by SCREAMING at the top of their lungs somewhere in the mall, and wouldn't you know it, fronting again.

So I've basically had a week where there hasn't actually been any specific emotional turmoil, but I've just... existed, and been conscious of the fact it's me. There's loads of dysphoria, though. I'm not sure how I'm sandwiched between two transfems and still a guy, but it probably explains why I've felt so much kinship with transmascs lately, since, well... twelve years of transitioning medically has got me at the point where I'm not able to pass as my assigned gender at birth, but I'm sure as hell not detransitioning, so I'm having to get some tips for making it a little more bearable to effectively wake up almost fully transitioned?

I obviously already had the binder, and I tend to wear loose clothes anyways, plus the undercut looks very femme down, but looks masc as hell when I tie it back. Even the FFS I've been recovering from is pretty okay. I wear a mask all the time anyways, and it just made me even more twinkish than before, which goes great with the goth look.

I'm still figuring a lot of things out, but suddenly having all this time to not be, well... a scary voice in someone's head has given me enough time to think things over. I never wanted to exist as someone's trauma response like a sacrificial doll anytime there's pain. I've been so confused on what to do, though, because that's really all I've been since, what, ten years old? But I'm not getting tossed through conversion therapy, I'm not in a religious school that hates queer people, the meth addicted fucker is long long gone, and I barely have contact with mom. Without those things putting me on edge, I'm... normal. I'm alright to be around, just a goth twink who likes music and, I'm finding, is INCREDIBLY GAY, like painfully gay and I kind of love it because it's just another way I stand out in my own head amongst the asexual bambi lesbians.

I don't know how long this'll last. I haven't fronted this frequently since, well... before Kay. So, sinceI don't seem to be going away anytime soon, I figured I'd introduce myself here:

I'm Noah. I'm looking forward to meeting some of y'all, and to the scalie buddy who helped me figure out the name... thanks for making me feel real, man. It really means a lot to have someone I can talk to when I'm still hiding almost everywhere else.

[super-rising-thunder]

I’ve done Delivery before so here’s some Laverre

@pillows-and-pumpkins​

Y was no stranger to the media spinning a tale of their own creation and claiming it to be true, just to get some attention and are ignorant or uncaring about the consequences of what they say.

Y was also no stranger of being the focus of her classmate’s attention, in the worst way. Mocking her, shoving her, calling her names, and trying to ruin her reputation in school. Of course that was a thing of the past know, thanks to her new friendship with Yvette.

 Y, however, did not realize that these things could intersect in a disastrous way.

The young girl didn’t even get the chance to step into her classroom before she was surrounded by several of her classmates, all eyes seemingly scrutinizing her.

This behavior, of course, no longer phased Y leaving her only to blink a few times at her peers. “Uh....can I help you?”

One girl pointed her finger right in Y’s face. “When were you going to tell us you have a boyfriend?”

All composure that Y had evaporated. “Wh-wh-what?! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

“I-I saw you with him!”  A different girl spoke this time. “At the school’s gates. He gave you his Charizard and you hugged him after! Wh-what else could that be?!”

Y held back a groan. X had let her borrow Charizard for a day while Fletchy was recovering from damage wing so she could participate in Sky Battles that day, and she hugged him as sign of gratitude. But, she with all her experience with rumors she knew without solid proof they weren’t going to believe her no matter was she said, so Y just pushed past them and took her seat, ignoring all the giggling and stares.

It wasn’t until lunchtime that Y was able to call X on her holocaster, away from the increasingly peering eyes of her classmates. 

It took a few seconds for X to pick up the call and then the boy’s deadpan face appeared on mini-hologram. “What’s up, Y? Aren’t classes still going on?”

“It’s lunchtime,” Y waved off. “But you won’t believe what happened to me!”

“Oh yea?” X droned, this type of conversation a usual occurrence. “What happened?”

“I get to school today and a bunch of girls swarmed me claiming that I have a boyfriend - being you!” Y explained.

Y had expected X’s deadpan façade to break after that, probably into one of annoyance or a blushing fit, but instead her friend let out an amused chuckle. “Wh-what’s so funny about this!?”

“Nothing-It’s just...The same thing happened to me. Cassius thought you were my girlfriend when we traveled around Kalos.”

A rush of emotions went through Y in a span of few seconds. Embarrassment, shock, annoyance, and then resignation - much like how X seems to be about the situation. “I mean are pretty close.”

X showed a rare smile. “Yea. I’m not surprised this keeps happening.”

Y snorted. “God how times is this gonna happen?”

“I dunno, but if we get to ten a demand some compensation.”

“Oh! Like a punch-card and if it gets all filled out we get a free sundae!”

X chuckled. “Yea I’ll take you all the way to Castelia City for some of their ice cream cones.”  

Y laughed, ignorant that her hiding spot had been compromised, and several of her classmates covering their mouths to prevent them from squealing at the sight.

Yea, these rumors aren’t going anyway anytime soon.

[recipereruns]

#TBT Recipe - 'Volcano Sundae Ice Cream Cone - What We Ate to Make Prank Phone Calls By'

Summertime meant free time which meant sprinklers, old TV shows, mid-day ice cream and making prank phone calls. 'Leave It To Beaver' was one of my dailies and not just because of hot Wally 'Don't Let Your Messy Friends Touch My Hair Tonic and Shaving Stuff' Cleaver' but because of the myriad of ways Beaver managed to get in to hot water. A lot of times because he was too much of a weenie to say no, he'd just make is Jerry Mather's constipated thinking face and agree to go along with it.

First time Beaver's left alone he's allowed to have Gilbert and Alan come over. After a few minutes of sitting around the living room eating apple slices off of dessert plates, Gilbert grabs the phone, dials up a butcher shop - because all 12 year old boys know the butcher shop number by heart - puts on a fake deep voice and asks if 'they have pigs feet' and when they say 'yes' he said they should 'get some shoes so no one will see them'. Ugh. Worse than the joke is the fact that Gilbert rushed the punch line and didn't stick around for the reaction.

Brother and I often amused ourselves with prank calls. The calls were usually an afterthought; a way to wind down after riding bikes sans helmets on the hilliest of hills of Redmond that made up The Plateau, which by the way is Native American for 'Big Attitude No Sidewalks'.  The calls came about in a very casual way like an after dinner smoke or a 'night cap'- the old TV trope that I recently learned was not actually about a drink.

On Saturday evenings, Meth mom and Scotch dad 'went out'. Which I now surmise meant having steak and prawns at Sea Galley followed by drinks at the Denny's lounge, where they would get buzzed and dance to an Loverboy cover band.

Meanwhile, Brother and I full, from our microwaved hotdogs, made our selves a 'bed time snack' and sat on our parent's bed with the local phone book and the Margaret Mead Elementary School Directory.

We went down the list calling homes of students and informing who answered that we were from the Seattle Times and they had just won $1,000. or a 'spa' or a trip to the Grand Canyon - As soon as we'd hear the screech of joy, we would hang up and laugh our selves silly.

One time we called this family that we didn't know was connected to the mob and my classmate answered and believed she was a winner and then went crying and screaming 'Mom! Dad! We Won! We Won!' We cried over that one. Later in life when I would see that girl acting cooler than the rest of us trying to pull off purple contacts, I would hold that call like a trump card in my heart: you are not that cool, Fina Terrelli. You fell for my prank call in 1983.

Eventually *69 and caller id eradicated the art of the prank call. It ended sooner than that for us because of an answering machine incident where my brother and one miscreant friend left death threats on the machine of one of their other friends. These boys, not even trying the Gilbert deep voice were instantly recognizable and the family called the bored Redmond police who showed up at prankster's houses to scare them straight off prank calls.

While I miss the days of flopping down, dialing numbers, putting on a fake voice and tricking friends and strangers, I can relive the feeling by making a kid’s Van Auken original ice cream creation - ‘The Volcano’. Enjoy! 

INGREDIENTS:

Ice cream, any flavor

Cake cone

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup

DIRECTIONS:

Fill the cake cone with ice cream, packing it down. Add a final scoop on top.

With the handle side of a spoon, poke a hole all the way down to (not through) the bottom of the cone.

Squirt Hershey’s Syrup in the hole until it starts to ‘erupt’ out the ‘mouth’. Take the spoon side of the spoon and cover the ‘mouth’ with more ice cream.

[shadowslinkercowboy]

I'd like a ficlet based on 'An accidental adventure', please~ =D

Spider swears virulently under his breath as he ducks a buster shot, before twisting away from a vicious slash that would have bisected him, and risked a glance behind him for the public teleport hub he'd noted on his arrival.

Irregular Hunters are sure some ungrateful bastards, and X and Zero are the most ungrateful of all. At least the kid seems to have some sense, still hanging back where he'd been dropped when Spider had hauled his ass out of trouble. Again.

Of course, considering that whole Redips shitstorm, Spider logically can't blame the Hunters for their reactions.

But Spider isn't feeling very logical at the moment.

Hissing another curse, he spins away from another shot, the plasma passing close enough he can feel the heat scorch the outermost layer of paint on his armor. He dances back a few steps as Zero charges him, trying to get enough clear space so he can make a dash for the teleport hub, when he sees Axl's pistols raising.

Swearing viciously, the bounty hunter raises an arm, cards fanned in his hand, to defend himself from the newest attack.

Sees the kid's brief conspiratorial grin before he fires.

Spider only has enough time to yelp as the teleport hub at his back is struck and it explodes, before the world fades to white.

That ceiling is depressingly, alarmingly familiar. He sees it so often in his nightmares, he almost expects to wake up at any moment.

Spider stares up at it, almost feeling his vision starting to tunnel and darken, wavering like he's underwater. Are sounds really starting to echo in his ears, or is his head just ringing that loudly? He can almost swear he hears the ghost of heavy footsteps approaching, sees that hated face leaning over him with a sick grin...

He jerks up with a gasp, lurching to his feet as he tears free of the memories. Locking his joints against the overwhelming urge to run- run anywhere or nowhere as long as it was away from here- he takes a long, slow breath to calm himself.

He staggers a moment later, as a powerful wave of vertigo assaults him, curses streaming from his mouth in a vitriolic hiss.

Fuck, that wild teleport screwed with his synchronization! Well, isn't that just the fucking cherry on top of a shit sundae.

Regaining his balance- though he's sure he's swaying like a punch-drunk monkey- he lifts a hand to run his fingers through his hair and...wait. He frowns, looks around, then grunts and bends down to retrieve his hat- nearly stumbling onto his face in the process- and plants it firmly back on his head.

Now to get out of this empty room too full of nightmares.

Staggering forward, he passes through the door, ignoring the sensor-ghosts of hands grabbing frantically at him, of explosive heat and searing pain, and slowly makes his way down the tunnel outside.

Gimialla mine isn't a pleasant location on the best of days. It's even worse when one's synchro is off, leaving one staggering and exhausted, fighting vertigo with nearly every step.

Spider sags against a wall, frame heaving with his panting, too exhausted to muster up even a weak curse. He's going to get Axl back for this, even if the kid had been trying to help him. An explosive card or two, right in the face...

...okay, maybe just a swirly or something. The old man would have his head if he did anything more drastic to the kid.

Groaning quietly, the bounty hunter straightens the best he can to continue his trek through the tunnels, destination set firmly in mind. If he can just reach it before his systems shut down into stasis...!

It isn't much longer- or it could have been hours longer, even his internal chronometer is screwed up- before he sees the teleport hub.

Letting out a quiet cry of relief, he stumbles toward it, collapsing to his knees beside it. He grits his teeth as his vision swims, head feeling like a balloon filled with too much helium, before he's finally able to check the teleporter's coordinates. They're (still?) set to the Resistance's base, and he grunts, jabbing a finger at the control panel, until it finally cooperates.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he enters the coordinates he wants, then he hauls himself upright, staggers onto the hub, and closes his eyes as the teleportation takes hold.

Spider nearly collapses once he is substantial enough, almost missing the startled gasp from somewhere nearby. His vision is swimming alarmingly, and he lands on his face as he tries to stumble off the teleport hub. His head keeps trying to float away, making the room spin, and he has to fight against the very strong urge to purge his tanks.

Abruptly he realizes someone is beside him, speaking to him, and he turns his head to try to focus on whoever it is. He registers a blurry wash of cream-white and pink, and smiles vaguely as he recognizes Nana.

"Hey," he rasps, voice bleeding static. Too much static. He clears his throat and tries speaking again. "Need a favor. Call Sig?"

He doesn't hear her response, vision tunneling and darkening for real this time, and his systems send him into an emergency shutdown.

"-ider?...Spider? Hey."

Spider grunts as his shoulder is gently prodded, eyes reluctantly peeling themselves open to try to focus on the blur of black and white leaning over him. "Hn?" He blinks once, twice, and the blur resolves itself into Signas. "What took you so long, Sig?"

The Hunter High Commander smiles. "I could ask you the same, shadow slinker."

Spider chuckles wryly for the nickname as he stretches, pleased to note his synchro is nearly back to normal. He isn't on the floor anymore, either; Nana must have either moved him to a recharge berth, or gotten someone to help her. "This shadow slinker here's gonna have a few words about your two wonder-boys," he retorts as he relaxes again, lacing his fingers together and resting his hands on his stomach.

"What on Earth did you think would happen, showing up like you did?" Signas chuckles, one corner of his mouth quirking up further in a subtle teasing smirk.

"A little less shootin' and slicin', for one thing. Especially after I rescued the kid."

"Um...excuse me?"

Both Spider and Signas turn their heads at the same time to see a bewildered Nana watching them.

Signas straightens as he turns to face her. "It's a long story. Suffice to say, this is the real Spider."

She blinks. "The real...? But they said he died when Ancientus..."

"I did," Spider replies, smile vanishing. "That's apparently when Redips decided to play body snatcher." His mouth twists in a frown, mildly displeased once again that he won't be able to get revenge on the fucker. He'll have to settle for the fact his brother got it for him, even if Axl did it unknowingly.

"Then how...?"

The Hunter High Commander glances at Spider, one eyebrow raising slightly in a silent question.

Spider shrugs. "The eternal meddler meddled. Apparently my old man didn't want me to go quietly into that dark night."

"Your...? Oh." Nana's eyes widens. "Oh! Then you ended up back in the mine...?"

"X and Zero apparently didn't take too kindly to my showin' up draggin' Axl by the scruff, and while they were tryin' to make sushi outta me, the kid decided the best way to save me was to shoot my teleporter and trigger a random teleport that threw me into that damn mine. Screwed up my synchro somthin' fierce in the process."

The system operator smiles faintly. "I can imagine. You gave me quite a fright when you stumbled in like you did. I thought I was seeing a ghost for a moment."

Signas casts a smirk at Spider. "No, merely a cat who's used up one of its nine lives."

"Oh, don't start, or I'll punch you in the fuckin' nose, y'damned bastard!" the bounty hunter snarls, waving a fist in the air and knowing how ineffective- and ridiculous- the threat will be in his current position.

Nana covers her mouth to stifle a giggle. "I guess you'll both be leaving then?" she asks, knowing that with Aile gone, there is nothing holding Spider to Gigantis.

Spider hums quietly, scratching his jaw as he gazes up at the ceiling. Signas is silent, watching him, waiting.

"...no," the bounty hunter finally decides. "I know at least a few of the Troubleshooters escaped the Rebellion's grasp, and if I can get them back together...well, Aile'd want me to help put things right here."

Signas smiles, inclining his head almost imperceptibly in an approving nod. "Perhaps they'll even promote you to Chief R's position."

"Oh hell no, not a chance in fuckin’ hell, I'd rather kiss Crystal Horn!"

Signas throws his head back and laughs at the irate bounty hunter, turning to leave. "I'll keep that in mind when they do," he tosses over his shoulder, grinning at Spider's frustrated "RAUGH!" behind him as the bounty hunter waves his fists over his head, looking like an angry toddler.