#anyway *dissociates*

[keets-writing-corner]

Thinking a LOT about Lucifer in the latest Hazbin episode. Idk what I was expecting but not this??

As I was watching my immediate thought was just "huh... Lucifer is kinda of weird..." but as the episode went on I realized the issue

the dude is off the chain depressed, like he says it as a joke but holy cow it is SO BAD

He's manically just creating rubber ducks cuz his daughter really like it that one time but it's empty, it's never good enough but he keeps doing it, maybe cuz he doesn't know how to pass the time otherwise.

like I get the feeling he HAS better things he SHOULD be doing than making rubber duck after rubber duck. At first I was like, "Bruh why isn't the king of hell doing anything?" aaaaand then it became clear...

The dude is disassociating so bad he can barely hold a conversation let alone remember information. He clearly WANTS to, he wants to be involved with his daughter so bad, he wants to care about the things she's doing so bad, but his depression keeps interfering. It's like he can only hear every other word and he grasps onto the ones he does hear semi-out of context. Like you can see every time he catches something that he hadn't before and he just "well shit I didn't catch that part"

and that's why he reacts so weird when people talk to him. He is struggling so bad to engage with the conversation he's only getting 50% of it

does that look like the face of a man who knows what the hell the conversation is even about??? he is STRUGGLING

like Charlie spent so long telling him about the hotel, and he STILL didn't understand what she wanted. Yeah it comes off as ditzy but literally I've been in that position where your brain just "nope, not doing this right now" and nerfs your conversation comprehension. So as someone who's BEEN in that position, to me it feels exactly like what he's dealing with. He's sorta engaged with the conversation, but only as much as his brain will allow

For example, when I'm dealing with this, this is what someone talking to me feels like this where the crossed out parts are what I missed and bold is what I catch, "Hey! You know I was thinking for dinner we could either make some chicken with rice? But if you don't feel like cooking, pasta is super easy and you love that right? What do you want to do?" you can kinda get that someone is trying to talk to you about dinner, and towards the end you get the impression that they asked something that needs your input so you can decently put 2 and 2 together and try and pass off, but crucial bits were left out, I would have no idea that either chicken or pasta is in the conversation only having heard "rice". When someone is just talking at me, I can decently pass off as being engaged but the second I'm required to participate in the conversation I'm screwed. Seem familiar? At which point I have 2 options, try to give a bullshit answer, or admit that I missed what they were saying and ask them to repeat

Lucifer, unfortunately, is trying so damn hard to hide that he's dealing with like 24/7 dissociation, so he can't admit that he's missing entire chunks of the conversation, hence his really weird replies. He does eventually get the full picture and then he and Charlie start having the real conversation

Also, the Alastor/Lucifer rivalry was hilarious but also really indicative of more of what Lucifer is dealing with

Alastor is, unfortunately, really good at picking up people's insecurities, and thanks to Charlie's description earlier and watching Lucifer clearly trying to overcompensate, he immediately picks up on the fact that Lucifer KNOWS he struggles to be a good dad (we know cuz it's cuz of the depression, hard to be engaged when your brain keeps turning off) and decides to rub salt in the wound by pretending he's been acting as a surrogate father to Charlie. Now why Alastor decided to pick a fight with the king of hell is beyond me, I do not understand Alastor (and I LIKE IT) (maybe it's cuz Alastor thinks he's hot shit and was expecting Lucifer to at least have heard of him but Lucifer just treats him like a nobody? who knows)(why would Lucifer listen to radio anyways when he can't even pay attention to a conversation it'd just be white noise)

But yeah I just was expecting someone who oozed either charisma or presence and instead I got a depressed dad who's dissociating so bad he can barely function and be present in his life. The only thing it seems he CAN do is make rubber ducks cuz his daughter really liked it that one time

Idk Lucifer is tragic to me. Whatever the full details of what heavan did to him absolutely broke him and he can't deal with it. He's aware of it, and he doesn't know how to fix it, so he tries to over compensate and sorta makes an ass out of himself but no one says or does anything cuz this guy is supposed to be THE king of hell

Suddenly it's making a lot more sense why he just rolls over and lets heaven do what it wants and even told Charlie to go in his place the start of the show. He's not in any headspace to hold a basic conversation let alone negotiate! He didn't even know who Alastor was, he's been so out of touch

idk I like him, he seems sweet, I hope Charlie brings some light back into his life. He really needs to get out of that rubber duck room

[timethehobo]

He’s just 👌

[teapot-of-tyrahn]

i like to think that the superpowers would leave a mark, even after they lost them. that they'd have lingering effects on the players. or, at least, their psyches.

gem has a tendency to dissociate, to feel disconnected from her body. joel frequently has to reel her back to reality and ground her when she spaces out like this.

for bdubs, sometimes it feels like time too slow, or doesn't move at all. a sort of dissociative time blindness and impermanence. not to mention his cardiac rhythm is TOTALLY askew.

for tango, everything goes too fast. his mind feels like it's on another plane, thoughts running a hundred miles a minute, but his body is too slow to correctly comply with the output from his mind. movement stuck in slow motion with a brain running at the speed of light.

lights have become too bright for ldshadowlady. she has photophobia and light sensitivity, she always has to squint in the daylight, and being around any sort of bright light for too long gives her a headache.

jimmy forgets he can be perceived. he has loss of object permanence but only with himself - he often forgets other people can see him, or even that he's there at all, that he's existing as a person and not as a ghost.

impulse forgets where he is sometimes. he has mild transient global amnesia - he can forget how he got somewhere, or where he is, or where he was going.

pearl struggles with the high places phenomenon; she forgets she can't fly. scott had to stop her from walking off a cliff - forgetting she couldn't spread her wings and soar - more than once.

scott becomes an involuntary pet regressor. sometimes, he forgets he's a human again, and he'll growl and bite and chirp and meow instead of speaking.

if martyn was still alive, everything would be too loud. he'd get overstimulated by noise easily, unable to filter irrelevant sounds out of conversations, mind constantly tuned into everything and as such struggling with hyperacusis and auditory processing.

ren has impostor syndrome. so many roles, so many faces, which was really his? he doesn't know himself, the only person who really did know him - who could tell him who he is - is gone now. maybe he died along with them. all he sees is a ghost in the mirror.

[saccharind]

from Prokaryote Season by Leo Fox

[sunlit-mess]

[mrs-scarecrow]

.....

Naib.

“I’ve made a small gift. A collection of flowers and vines.. I suspect this may be one of the first gifts I’ve made and it is an odd feeling.. will they even like it?”

“It feels a bit too soon before Christmas but i have things to do”

[@mrs-scarecrow]

[casart]

..•Perception Distorted•..

[clever-and-unique-name]

A simplified version of the thing I feel like goes on in my brain.

Blank version under the readmore if you want to be a bit silly+introspective with your own "settings"

[howlsofbloodhounds]

this may sound a little strange but when it comes to the utmv fandom and in universe meta aware characters interacting with ones who aren’t aware, I like to approach it more from like a religious or spiritual belief standpoint. so like, to others, characters like killer and ink seem either really religious or spiritual (ink) or really superstitious/religious/indoctrinated (killer). ink believes in creators, but to killer, those creators are actually more like players.

[stupidwittlebaby]

Do any of you systems ever dissociate, but in a good way?

Not a groggy, hazy, or numb sort of dissociation, but a comfortably disconnected one. Sensations, smells, tastes - they're all still there, I can feel them, but they're soft and dream-like. It's more like walking through an open world video game. No quests, no fighting, just walking and observing, admiring the little details the devs lovingly put into their craft.

I'm more connected with the inside. I'm not talking to any of my headmates in particular, but I can feel the shape of our system as a whole. We're certainly polyfragmented, there's no doubt about that, no matter what Ken thinks.

I know who I am, in this moment, but the 'I' we'll be later won't remember. But that's okay. Because I'm here now, and this moment is beautiful, and there will be other beautiful moments for our other parts. And I got to write this, thereby immortalizing it in some small way.

Does anyone else ever dissociate in this way? Maybe non-systems, maybe even some neurotypical people? I know it can't be universal, but I hope it's more common than I'd think. It's a lovely feeling, to be here and not here and just feel calm.

[thefluxsystem]

something i don’t see talked about in the system community enough are the dissociative shutdowns.

when you’re in a system, you know what it feels like to not have control over your body because somebody else does. so, when you’re supposed to be controlling the body and, when life hits the fan, suddenly it won’t do anything you want it to do, it’s terrifying.

the world feels crushing yet far away at the same time. your eyes are looking around, but they’re not truly seeing. you can hear someone talking, and you can’t respond— and if you are, the words falling off your lips are foreign and feel numb on your tongue.

when you’re in that state you feel nothing. you don’t notice your own actions (if you can even muster any), you don’t register touch or pain, you don’t feel cold, you don’t feel heat.

hours pass. maybe it’s only minutes? it’s impossible to tell. you’re frozen in time and space but everything is still moving on around you.

then all the sudden it’s over. at least it seems over. something still feels… wrong. but there’s no time to address that.

as time goes on, it turns out that you never really circle back to why that happened. until it happens again. then you ignore it. the cycle continues.

[rbtlvr]

(text from this post, fic is little kid with a big death wish by @remedyturtles)

i'm genuinely not sure where to start here - ig first of all this fic is absolutely incredible and if you somehow haven't read it yet you absolutely should!

okay. man. rem, this fic means so so much to me and i'm so glad i got to be here for it. i think this is one of those fics that'll stick with me years down the line even if one day i'm not into tmnt anymore, one i'll come back to over and over again

your writing has touched so so many people myself very much included, and i just. want to thank you so much for writing this fic and thank you for sharing it. you're an amazing writer and an amazing person and i'm lucky to know you. i can't wait to see what you do next

[interstellarsystem]

Sometimes being a fictionkin/fictive heavy system means that you can't watch a TV show without dissociating and not being entirely sure of who you are at any given moment. Sometimes you just become brain soup. Can't fit everyone in the theatre to watch? Blend them, that'll surely fix it!

[artist-rat]

one of the assest years ever in general but art-wise surprisingly good 🌿

[kaboom--bitch]

That previos post being said, headmates who are a part of a minority (gender, sexuality, romantic orientation, neurodivergent, disability, whatever else) that the body isn't a part of are and should be allowed to call people out when they're being assholes to them. Discrimination is discrimination, full fucking stop.

A headmate holding symptoms of a disorder doesn't have to shut up and take it when they're told their struggles mean nothing because they're a headmate. A headmate who is trans in a cis body doesn't have to step aside when presented with transphobia. A headmate doesn't have to stop using a cane when they front for their individual disability/symptoms just because other people think they're being ableist for needing it.

Headmates are people capable of their own lived experiences, and sure, it's complicated! There might be differences between people with that identity bodily vs a headmate and those can be discussed! But there's still plenty of room for discussion about the real struggles headmates of minority communites face. Headmates shouldn't be shoved aside. It's dehumanising and honestly just showing your own ableism if you act like headmates have to stand to the side and not talk about their experiences.

[zenithsys]

Do you feel, like, constantly overwhelmed? Unable to focus on tasks and self-care like showering? Have I got the tip for you

I recently got put on this method through a YouTube video recommended to me called the Sharp Ax method. Name doesn't matter, I'm gonna skip right to telling you what to do.

You have a notebook? Maybe one that you've horded and used once or twice before abandoning? Grab that shit. Get your favorite pen. At the top of the page you're going to write "Brain Dump". For like, 10-15 minutes, just sit there and write down every thought that comes to mind. Does your back hurt? Write it. Do you have to make breakfast? Write it.

But here's the thing: if there's something you need to do (paperwork, showering, shopping, etc) you're gonna write it like this.

"I want to shower." "I want to check the mailbox." "I want to do my laundry today."

For whatever reason, reframing things you need to do as things you want to do has helped me so immensely, and even when I can't finish all the things I want to finish, I still feel good for finishing the ones I was able to.

This stupidly simple journaling technique (which doesn't even feel like journalling to me) has caused me to go from being chronically overwhelmed to feeling like, even just for a little bit, everything is going to be okay.