#did acceptance

[insipid-drivel]

Having DID/OSDD can be very strange as much as it can be very interesting. We use this button, which has dry-erase paint on it and a marker to go with it, to ID ourselves when someone else is in front. We needed this button yesterday.

My mom just turned 66 and needed to go in for a breast biopsy after her yearly physical showed some anomalous sparkles on a scan. There’s literally a 90% likelihood she’s fine, but it triggered me like a baseball bat to an unsuspecting mailbox. My dad fought cancer for my entire teenage years until he passed away when I was almost 17 of an HIV-related infection. It isn’t the sort of trauma that tears and claws at me on a regular basis, but I broke down hard when my mom came home after the test and announced it would be a few days before the results came back. We were sitting down to eat together, and the meltdown first manifested when I couldn’t bring myself to swallow anything. Trauma sucks like that.

When I get that triggered that suddenly, it’s scary and bewildering. 2 years ago or more, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it, and I would’ve felt very alone in my own head. I didn’t know I had DID until 2 years ago when the characters in my books stopped being characters and revealed that they’d always been with me, and that my writing was the safest way they could talk to and interact with me. The eldest of them all, Cassandra, didn’t want me to be diagnosed until well into my adult life so I would have full control over how it was treated rather than a parent or guardian and doctors running on very poor research that could’ve caused more harm than good.

Marchosias took over all of yesterday afternoon and well into the night. He doesn’t usually like to spend much time in front, but a meltdown hit me quite literally in the middle of staring at my plate of dinner. He used to be an alter I was afraid of; we didn’t get along or understand each other, mostly because we didn’t know how to communicate. Marchosias processes trauma with anger; he’s gruff and has such a distinct voice that my mother doesn’t need any announcement to tell it’s him talking. I used to think he was a demon, because if you google his name, that’s what you’ll find, but now that we’ve learned to communicate with each other, he’s one of my toughest and most resilient guardians.

DID/OSDD doesn’t have to be a nightmare sentence of stigma and awfulness. I got triggered yesterday, and reached for Marchosias to help, because I needed not to be “here” for a while. He wrote his name on the button and pinned it on our shirt, wiped tears off my face as they evaporated like magic, and ate my dinner for me while reassuring my family I’d be okay and that the fries needed salt. When asked if he was nervous, he shrugged and said, “No. I understand statistics. 90% means you’re fine. 10% means your insurance covers a breast augmentation.” He then pulled out my tablet and loaded a webpage for a tattoo shop not far from where we lived. “These guys tattoo mastectomy scars for free.”

They spent the rest of dinner talking over potential tattoo ideas while I was in a dreamworld where there were 7 moons and a man who looked like mercury come to life with a love for expensive whiskey and strawberries talked to me about how infinity ran in every direction. He reassured me my mom was fine because he’d “put in an information request with the right people.” I shrugged it off and admired the snowflakes sparkling. My alters are very good at putting me in literal headspaces that are too pretty for me to continue to be upset in.

Marchosias made sure my teeth were brushed before bed. He made sure to brush my hair, and even refilled my weekly pill organizer for me, because it was the day for that and I was too upset to do it. He kept drinking water for me, took a bath for me, and got me to bed on time with everything organized and a message on my computer screen telling me that he’d taken the memories away, but everything else was taken care of.

When I greeted my mom the next morning, she simply said she wished she could “bottle some of that”, because she was envious of the instantaneous relief that came from switching with Marchosias. Marchosias wrote a note to her to explain that he wouldn’t do it very frequently, because the more episodes of amnesia I had, the more dependent I would be on help to stay oriented in the right time and place. “We have stringent standards and checks and balances to go by,” he said with authority. “The disorientation:relief ratio has to be distinctly beneficial. We have to deal with the ramifications of our own bullshit, you know.”

Waking up always feels a little like waking up in a patient recovery room with your loved ones just outside the door talking to the doctor. In my case, his name is Alex and he was responsible for making sure my medications were organized and counted out properly. While it was me again, I still felt someone behind me, and found that Marchosias had made a convincing pile of blankets and cushions for me to imagine was him.

Remember that a lot of these disorders are survival mechanisms. Mine won’t let me forget it, and I have a dry-erase button to prove it.

[livingfictionsystem]

The bar has presents for the staff lined up.

I always feel warm and fuzzy when both of us alters are thought of/cared about as individuals. 💙💛💙

-Xanthe

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

"You and me, Ethan. Together we go save Rose, and then we can grind Miranda into paste!"

[mossmittens]

*major dungeon meshi spoilers ahead*

i understand why people hc that post-canon thistle might stay with or near falin assuming that he lives which i am because he does live, leave me alone. faligon caring for thistle and the mother-child imagery, etc. i get it. but i don't see falin actually being ready to take care of a traumatized 1000 year old teenager who would be struggling massively after having all his desires eaten.

there is, however, a character who's up to the task imho

she historically adopts short-lived races, but i think thistle's unique situation would be interesting enough for her to consider it. AND thinking about how thistle's fear of his short-lived family members dying was an issue, i think a caretaker who will die before him is ummmmm, not gonna be great for him.

also, she has some experience with ex-dungeon lords who have had their desires eaten (and if we wanna make this into a mirumisu situation where she asks mithrun's help with figuring out the best way to take care of thistle and then they fall in love? i won't complain)

[guardianspirits13]

Anyways. I'm glad we've moved past the "heavy handed allegory for racism between two different sentient species where they are all best friends in the end" episodes and into the "racism is so deeply engrained into society that in the absence of active anti-racist deconstruction people would go to any length to avoid confronting their biases and changing their worldview"

[demigods-posts]

i'm one hundred percent certain that after percy and annabeth made out underwater. and he wanted to make their relationship official. the question was not "will you be my girlfriend?" but "can i be your boyfriend?" i don't care what the canon says. percy gave annabeth the space to take the lead in the relationship. because after a lifetime of being abandoned by everyone she dared to care for. and then watching her on the brink of a panic attack at the thought of losing him the last four years. he wanted to honor a new beginning between them by follow her lead and moving at her pace.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[tragicotps]

What age was Gillian Anderson in The X-Files? (x)

[triona-tribblescore]

okay so they may have a minor chokehold on me at the minute-

[wistfulwatcher]

[deadsetobsessions]

Writing Prompt… kind of? Definitely write more if you want but this was a cute little “fic starter” that popped into my mind.

——

Danny didn’t know the first thing about art. This is an important fact.

“Sam, why am I even here?”

“Suck it up, Casper.”

“The show or the school?” Danny privately thought Casper the Friendly Ghost was the best thing to have come around. It did wonders for improving relations between Amity and inhabitants of the Zone.

Sam smacked him on the arm. “You know which one. You’re just here to be the normie judge. You don’t need to know anything about art.”

“Everyone here is like an art acolyte or something, Sam! I’m an engineering newb in a room full of people with art PhDs!”

Sam rolled her eyes and checked her manicures. “If you call Fenton Works newb level, then the rest of the world would be Neanderthals. Seriously that’s why you’re here. The art’s gotta appeal to the untrained eyes too. I trust your judgement.”

Danny gave in. “Thanks, Sam. That means a lot.” He followed after Sam but after a moment, he whined, “But couldn’t you have taken Tucker? Dude’s got four untrained eyes!”

“He’s busy with his internship. And you were already in Gotham.”

They reach the exhibition, Sam and Danny being welcomed in. Sam’s parents, while not the richest of the rich, were known art connoisseurs and respected people in the communities that dotted around the world. On top of being the descendants of the man that invented the deli toothpick cellophane twirling device, that is. Sam was standing in their place today- begrudgingly- because they’d promised to pay for an entire month of Gotham architecture tours and a trip to Japan. After all, Sam had much of their knowledge too. If anyone could say anything about the Masons, it was that they were passionate in their chosen field. L

“The contestants are in the room next door. The judge panel is beginning.” The person at the door informed them. He gave them a slip of paper and a pen to mark their choices in each field. Danny breathed a sigh of relief and began wandering around.

After he wandered between the oil paintings- “oo, this one. Reason why… the vibes are nostalgic. I like it.”- and the various depictions of a specific ship, Danny was pulled to a stop by his core reaching out. He looked up and what he saw took his breath away.

It was just a photo.

But it felt like he was there, on that rooftop, crouched among the shadows and watching the early rays of muffled light hit the tops of his city. His core thrummed. It felt like protection. It felt like he was being fulfilled, like Danny was once more becoming Phantom and that he was watching over this city he’s beginning to understand.

Danny, almost fevered, scribbled down the name [A Robin’s Nest- by Tim Drake] as his number one choice to win the contest over all. And, at least, to win the first in the photography division.

——

“Oh, Ancients, are you okay?”

Danny had wandered around in the interim as the votes were tallied. He hadn’t been paying attention when he smacked into a little kid that could have been his little brother.

“Uhm. I’m good.”

Danny helped the kid up. “I’m Danny. I’m sorry I smacked into you. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“Yeah. I’m Timothy Drake. I’m good.”

Danny’s smile widened in shock. “Like the photographer? Oh, wow! I really loved that photo! It was amazing! It felt like I was up there with the vigilantes!”

As he spoke, Danny glanced around for the kid’s designated adults. Hm. That’s odd. Everyone and their parental figure was accounted for.

“Oh.” Timothy flushed. “Thanks! I hoped the judges liked it too.”

Danny smiled, a small secretive thing. “Oh, I’m sure they will. Will you tell me more about your photography?”

“Oh, if you want!”

——

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny runs for Mayor

Simple Prompt: Danny runs for the Gotham Mayor position

Extended Prompt: Danny is an absolute little shit throughout his entire campaign but still manages to win because he is legitimately one of the best candidates around

Just imagine the crack that could come from this!

Reporter: What is your stance on Vigilantism? Danny: Well I agree that Vigilantes are helpful for the communities that need them, and they should work with the police at every opportunity, I feel like the idea will always be a city where Vigilantes are not needed. Also I fail to see the relevancy of the question, there are no vigilantes in Gotham Reporter: What do you mean? What about the Bat-Family? Danny: No, Batman isn’t a Vigilante. Batman is a Crime Lord.

Or

Danny: As mayor, I promise that I will not be infected by corruption. Not because of my moral standings, but because I absolutely fucking hate clowns and I will never accept a bribe as long as that guy is still alive. Yes this is me putting a hit out on the Joker. Crime Bosses, if you want to try and bribe me, you gotta kill him first or I won’t even consider it!

Or

Batman: Why is a Meta-Human running for Gotham Office? You know this city doesn’t have a very good track record with people like you. Even the Signal had a rough start. Danny: Well, I just had a strong compulsion to help this city reach the peak of it’s potential *looks over Batman’s shoulder to see Lady Gotham holding up Cue Cards telling him what to say. She promised to help with his paperwork for the next 50 years if he became Mayor and helped fix her city* Danny: Such a strong compulsion...

Or

Penguin: Look kid, I don’t care if you have enough power to destroy me at the subatomic level, I have enough money to ruin you, your sister, your parents, even your uncle! Danny: Oh really? I could get the souls of every person you have ever killed to get confessions out of them. Or I could give them the power to rip you apart. Or I could even just possess you and donate all your money to charity.

Or

Danny: Oh god dammit! Vlad: Hello Badger! Glad to see you followed in my footsteps instead of your fathers! Danny: This wasn’t because of you! Lady Gotham asked for help! Vlad: A WIN IS A WIN!

[soosoosoup]

Funk branch au

Au and branch design by @bbc-trolls

[jkvjimin]

MAKNAE LINE CORE cr. @jung-koook