#(for legal reasons the previous two tags are sadly lies)

[virdemption]

Canon A-90 facts you were never told about but I was

Trans man + He/Him.

Subspecies derived from Ambush's species - Probably explains why they were good childhood friends.

Security - He is a knight. At least he comes across as that. He wants to appear as noble and respectable as he can but he's actually very feral. Even moreso than the other two! His stop sign is his shield, his sword was custom made in secret before he ran away for the hotel.

His armor makes him the heaviest entity out of everybody (both rooms + doors) but he's actually underweight and is one of the lightest when he's not wearing it.

[BODY HORROR + BLOOD + KNIFE IN BOTH LINKS] He can do this! I go a lot more in depth here!

He... Is really bad at using his sword. He never learned how and his blades are more natural feeling to him but something something internalized pressure before going to the hotel weighing in + doing that forever before the sword but he'd still rather use the sword.

Inability to properly use the sword is why he deals less damage than the other two. It's usually when he's using the blades and claws when he gets someone in one shot.

His blood stains EVERYTHING and not even A-60 or Guiding Light can clean it. They hate it so much when he activates his bodily blades.

SOUNDS SOUNDS SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE SOUNDS. Biggest gripe with the movement is the sounds. Even if you hold still, make just the slightest noise or the wrong one you will be sliced. He has good hearing and hates it.

Cannot STAND the sound of ringing phones especially. People would text him but they're so taken aback by how he texts vs how he talks that they'd rather not. He replies with shit like "Howdy :3c" and they're like what is wrong with you.

Isn't as aggressive as A-60 but is way easier to piss off than A-120, he does often snap at people.

He's fairly neutral for the most part, the anger comes from the obnoxiousness of intruders and the fear they'll hurt Curious Light.

Sometimes. (Increasingly more often). When he's hungry, he will get more aggressive (but in a manic way, not anger). Full razors, cloudy mind, and a higher sensitivity to sounds follows through as he'll tear apart intruders limb by limb and feast on them right then and there.

He doesn't keep the bones though, he gives them to A-60.

Gets really jittery a lot and tends to struggle clearing his head.

He was the last Rooms entity to show up in the hotel before their banishment (you'll never guess where). A-60 and A-120 had made it there together a few weeks beforehand. He arrived there as a getaway from his expectations and to find cool stuff.

Found Curious Light wandering the Rooms after she got super duper lost and takes care of her until he can one day reunite her with her mom (Which they do eventually, and he's good friends with Guiding Light).

Carries a duffel bag everywhere that has a bunch of random junk collected off of intruders. He's somewhat attached to a lot of stuff in there.

Very introverted, struggles to express anger with words and starts speaking complete gibberish when aggravated, especially dealing with intruders or if A-60 is upsetting Curious Light. (H gagweek sihco hc lgc shcr ht nils64 nlxo)

Guiding Light, A-120, and Ambush are the only entities who can translate his gibberish.

Eyes show as just a dark void, but his irises become visible when experiencing any extreme emotion, pupils also being visible if it's that strong of a feeling. Depending on emotion, they change shape and size (e.g. goat-like when stressed/scared).

Blood/internal systems change colors from red-yellow-green depending on how he feels as well. His default color is actually yellow but he's never in a good enough mood to shine that or green. Therefore everyone assumes he's just normally red. Even though a few people have seen him yellow and one person has seen him green.

He's the reason there's so much gold and batteries in the Rooms, when he collects them from humans, he scatters them about so people get distracted and give him the chance to strike.

Collects skin conditions like pokemon cards he has eczema acne and that thing where you get spots on your torso after your body fights off a virus I FORGOT HOW TO SPELL IT but his entire body is pretty red/yellow/green depending on how he feels as previously mentioned.

Positive relationship with A-120 for the most part, finds A-60 annoying but puts up with her (Help I hate most A-90 ships)

[gaiatheorist]

‘Hostile environment.’

Andrew McDonald, former chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee, and also chair at Scope, has stated that the UK disability benefits process is ‘Kafka-esque.’ It’s an article in The Guardian, I read it yesterday, shook my head sadly, and moved on, because I was still quite punch drunk after Friday’s Job Centre appointment.

I’m not going back into the comments section on it, because a large proportion of the replies yesterday were along the lines of “He doesn’t need the money!”, and that way lies more Witch-pricking, about being ‘disabled enough’ or ‘entitled to assistance.’ The gentleman in question has Parkinson’s, a degenerative neurological condition, and a diagnosis of cancer, recently, his disability benefit was cut off, in layman’s terms, the system decided he’d ‘gotten better.’ Yes, I’m rolling my eyes. It’s none of my business whether that individual could manage without state assistance, what concerns me more is the state of the state some of us find ourselves reliant on. 

More of the comments were moderate and balanced, “If he found it difficult, how do other people cope?” Some of us don’t, and I’m deliberately blinkering myself from looking into statistics on how many deaths have followed the roll-out of Personal Independence Payment replacing the previous disability benefits in the UK. That’s a rabbit-hole I can ill afford to fall into right now, as much as I know I ‘should’ be doing something to help, these wittering accounts of what is ‘hidden, in plain sight’ will have to do for now. I am physically and emotionally fragile, as a direct result of two years of battling through the labyrinthine Universal Credit and PIP systems. (’Nervous breakdowns’ are difficult, when you don’t know how to break.) 

Looking at the case raised in the article, it’s a very straightforward case of the DWP ‘trying it on.’ Clients/customers/claimants, or whatever we’re called this week, who have historically been entitled to Employment Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, or any other historical disability benefit are re-assessed through the PIP system. (Along with ‘new’ cases, like mine, I was declined PIP in 2016, I tried to manage without. I didn’t manage, and ended up re-applying in 2017.) If people can manage without assistance, they will, rather than submit to the indignity of explaining how they manage their intimate hygiene and toileting needs to yet another assessor. (Rolling my eyes again, at one of my assessors asking me if I wore ‘crop-tops, like sports bras’ to work-around the functional difficulties I have with ordinary bras. Sports bras are evil, they’re just as difficult for me to get into and out of as ‘normal’ bras, but nobody actually sees or hears the bra-gument on the days when I feel the need to present some semblance of decorum, rather than just fastening my top-jumper, and hoping nobody notices.) 

Thousands, possibly millions of people in the UK will have had the dreaded brown envelopes, either to transfer to, or apply for PIP. There’s an indignant-teenager side-rant, “I didn’t ask to be born!”, about the insidious ways the systems have moved the goalposts, perhaps the previous systems were too lax, or maybe it is purely to reduce the government’s expenditure on disability benefit? The magic money tree, I mustn’t allow myself to be sidetracked on things I don’t think the government should be funding, I’ll be here all day. The decision, when that envelope arrives, is fairly binary, you either apply or you don’t. If there are any fiddlers or fakers left, they probably won’t apply, everyone knows the urban legends about the ‘scrounger’ with the ‘bad back’, moonlighting as a pole-dancer. (There’s another eye-roll, at my last Job Centre appointment, I’d managed to sit awkwardly as I was waiting to be called, and was acutely aware that I was limping, I had pins and needles. I tried to correct my gait, and very nearly fell over, conscious that limping to the desk, and walking away ‘normally’ would be observed, and noted. ‘Faking it’, anyone?)

Other people who won’t apply within the specified timescale will include those with literacy or visual issues, who can’t see, or understand the writing. That’s if the letter even arrives ‘on time’, bit of a hiccup with the DWP post-rooms, it would appear, my local Job Centre is heading for a meltdown already. ‘Universal Credit is changing.’, lucky for me that one of the traits of my complex combination of medical issues is to be over-cautious, I was able to decode the text in the letters, and navigate my way through the electronic minefield, to have my transfer completed within timescale, and not be bounced-out of the system. Judgement, and a touch of luck, that the Job Centre staff discussed amongst themselves whether to proceed with my appointment, because my ‘assessment phase’ was wrong. One of the free gifts with my brain injuries was hyperaccuisis, profoundly over-sensitive hearing, it’s excruciating in supermarkets and such, but I could hear the ladies having a quiet chat about which transfer to process, and which to recall for another appointment. My ‘old’ work-coach was there, and I heard her say, quietly, “She will already have done it.” The all-singing-all-dancing ‘Full Service’ system isn’t as straightforward as the government would like people to think, for every ‘transfer by this date’ letter, even for sometimes-highly-functional people, like me, there’s another layer of input, in the Job Centre. The claims are input into the new system, that the staff have only just been trained on, and the chosen ones have to be manually referred to case managers before they are fully ‘switched.’  Lots of people will have their claims closed or disallowed due to a technicality they’re not made aware of. The letters are very carefully woven into a timing-trap, it isn’t just the time-pressure of ‘complete all of these actions (and the other ones we’ll tag on) by this date’, they’re also sent out to coincide precisely with the end of the claimant’s ‘assessment phase.’ I didn’t know what an ‘assessment phase’ was until that appointment, or how close I was to having my transfer delayed or rejected, it could still happen, I have just enough money in the bank to tide me over if DWP don’t switch my claim within their self-set time-window.

(For anyone on UC, the assessment phase clause, explained as clearly as I can, my brain injuries have completely robbed me of my grasp of ‘numbers’ in general, they may as well be hieroglyphics, they swarm about the page like demented squiggly ants, and make no sense at all to me. If your assessment phase is ‘wrong’, the Job Centre staff have to make a decision whether to manually input your claim and evidence, or re-call you for another appointment. There’s a potential risk that your claim will be stopped if it isn’t manually over-ridden within your assessment phase. My payment date is the 15th of each month, and my assessment phase runs from the 9th of each month to the 8th of the following month. There is ‘potential for payment delay’ if the ‘new’ claim isn’t ‘in alignment’ on the Full Service system before the end of the assessment period. My appointment was on Friday 5th October, if the case manager didn’t sign it off on the day, I’m technically timed-out, because the 6th and 7th of this month are a weekend.) There’s a clattering great big massive guilt-trip brewing, and I need to banish it. Rationally, that hushed discussion between the work coaches, in deciding to process my claim, rather than the other person booked in at the same time was BECAUSE they knew I would have already completed the input properly, and turned up with the right evidence. I’m always going to be a ‘light touch’ case, I don’t need chasing or coddling in order to be compliant with expectations, the new work coach was astounded that I’d already ‘gone above and beyond’, and effectively done part of her job for her. “Oh, wow, you’ve already done it, you ARE good, did you write these yourself?” “Yes, I did, are they sufficient to pass scrutiny?” “They’re PERFECT.” I’m a particular kind of awful, and had written my own ‘Claimant Commitment’, in legal-compliant terminology that gives DWP no wriggle-room to sanction me for non-compliance. When I’m good, I’m very good. The misplaced guilt here is because I have enough money put by to cover my essential expenses for a couple of months if DWP start monkeying about with my payments, the other person (who had actually left the building while the coaches decided to call me through) might not have that buffer-zone. How’s that for a combination of Catholic guilt, and a Protestant work ethic?

My ‘conditionality’ group has only recently been changed from ‘full commitment’ to ‘work preparation group’, I’m declared as having ‘limited capacity for work’, which I accept, my functionality is limited. There’s another time-trap associated with that. I’d declared my disability right at the start of my UC claim, in May 2017, after six months of sick leave from my previous employers, trying and failing to link up the bits of the NHS who are still juggling me about like a hot potato. Without a formal PIP award, I wasn’t considered ‘disabled enough’, I’d re-applied for PIP in March 2017, when it became evident that I wasn’t going to be able to return to my job without significant risk to self and others. It was noted that I had applied, but, without the ‘award’, I was processed as a ‘universal’ claimant, that process is largely responsible for the decline in my health. On a standard claimant commitment, I was under constant fear of sanctions if I failed to actively seek any suitable employment. I’m wily, I was able to accurately record reasons why I wasn’t applying for ‘Recommended’ vacancies, sometimes hundreds of reasons a day. (Flashback, to a long-ago manager barking “Don’t give me excuses, give me reasons!”, when I was consistently below sales-targets for payment protection insurance. The reason then, as now, was that I’m too honest, my ‘excuse’ now is that my brain is damaged, I physically can’t work 9-5 safely, evening work is completely out of the question, and ‘normal’ environments present me with a level of sensory overload that’s frequently unbearable to safely function through.) I was able to do that, until I wasn’t any more, the pincer-movement of UC demanding to know what I ‘could’ do, and PIP focusing on what I ‘could not’ came very close to breaking me. The time-trap is that I was allocated into the ‘limited capacity’ category 9/8/18, for a period of 12 months, but DWP systems record the start-date as 15/2/18, so I’ll be re-assessed, to see if I still have brain injuries six months into a twelve month conditionality period. (Spoiler alert, I will still have brain injuries, I might have even more, dependent on the outcomes from my last scan, I may need further corrective surgery.) As pleasant as my old work coach was, she knew from the outset how to trigger the right conditionality group, and she didn’t/couldn’t do it until I used the ‘magic word’, they’re not supposed to give you opt-outs. I understand the logic. If everyone knew that a GP’s ‘unfit for work’ note triggers a pause in the relentless pressure of the UC commitments, we’d be back in the realm of ‘a bad back’ again. (Smirking, I have endometrial adhesions on something in my lower-right abdomen, and I fell over very badly at a family function earlier this summer, I have a bad back.) My GP knows I’m genuine, and not ‘swinging it’, he’s been adorable throughout this mess, but I’d already discovered that DWP tend to dismiss additional evidence from GPs as collusion, and I didn’t want to increase his workload. I bore the weight of that myself. Twelve week sick-notes aren’t handed out lightly, and he insisted on regular check-ins, because he could see what the enforced resilience was doing to me.  

The resilience was because I had to fight my way through the PIP process. 17 months of my life effectively ‘lost’, my CV hasn’t been updated, and my references will be looked at dubiously, if the people are even still in post. 17 months of trying to ‘prove’ that my disability hits the shifted goalposts for being ‘enough’. It’s not funny that my physical and emotional health have actually deteriorated markedly during that process, it is, as Ken Loach pointed out, ‘conscious cruelty’. 17 months, living on fresh air and food-bank parcels by the end of it, but I lived, some people don’t. “I, Daniella Blake.”, as I waffled in a letter to my MP, I’m aware of most of my functional limitations, and I occasionally stumble upon a new one, and have to implement strategies to work around it. The very fact that I do that sets me at odds with the PIP process. “You stated that you have difficulties with ‘x’, I have decided that you can ‘x’.”, over, and over again, in some faceless ‘decision maker’ response.  I had stated difficulties, because I do experience difficulties, perhaps not so severe as some, and I know for certain that I didn’t even list all of the functional impairments I have now, because the questions are so oblique that there’s no way to record everything. (The ‘Welfare Rights Advocate’, who didn’t really do anything, has been given my permission to use a template I created, to record my functional difficulties, in terms of physical/intellectual/emotional/social barriers, with associated risks and adaptations. That document wasn’t actually submitted when I eventually attended court, it would have blown the panel away with how much I contend with every single day, but the advocate was lax, and didn’t advise me whether to submit, so I withheld.) 

“I have these disabilities, and they cause me difficulties with these ‘descriptor’ activities.”

“No, they don’t.”

That’s the gist of the initial application and assessment stage, IF you manage to fill and return the forms in the first place. You send in the paper forms, and someone, somewhere makes a decision on whether to allocate an assessment. My medical issues are sufficiently complex to warrant an assessment, I suspect that some cases will be rejected immediately, and that some of the forms won’t even be filled in to begin with. I don’t want to open the bulging file again to check terminology, but there’s a degree of assumed compliance to the wording of the questions. “Are you able to ‘x’?” “Yes/no/it varies.” People will tick ‘yes’ for things they are only able to do with ‘aids, adaptations, or assistance.’, because nobody wants to admit to being unable to manage absolutely basic functions, like washing, dressing, microwaving a bowl of soup, and the delights of explaining to yet another stranger about toileting. (Don’t get me started on “This includes assistance you have, or assistance you need, but do not have.” I live alone for the majority of the time, there IS no-one to provide assistance if I fall off the toilet, or bang my head on the wall trying to put my trousers on.) Once you tick ‘yes’, you can move on to the next question, blessed relief for some, who have difficulty with forms, or don’t want to denigrate themselves by detailing how difficult it is to perform the descriptor activities ‘repeatedly, reliably, and within a reasonable time-frame.’ 

Given enough time, I’m VERY good at providing evidence. Some people aren’t, and that’s my major concern with these systems, that the processes are so obfuscated and convoluted that the most vulnerable will fall through. On a procedural level, that means more high-end interventions for crisis-cases, in an attempt to cut benefit spending, this government is re-loading that cost onto the NHS, social care, and overstretched voluntary sector resources. (Some of whom are financially bound by effective ‘gagging orders’, their funding will be cut if they speak out about the causes of some of the issues they are dealing with.) I was able to apply for the benefit, sit through the ridiculous assessment, and stand on one leg, just in case I ever want to apply for a job as a flamingo. I was able to challenge the decision, at the ‘Mandatory Reconsideration’ stage, and bite back the bile that rose at the thought of a system that has a ‘Mandatory’ function for reconsidering initial decisions. They know that their initial decisions are wrong 7/10 times, that’s why they have that clause, they just rely on people opting out of proceeding, with no thought to the consequences. 

My Mandatory Reconsideration response was a re-hash of the original decision, zero-points, not-disabled. From memory, you’re permitted one month to request a Tribunal Hearing if you disagree with the decision, more paperwork, more evidence, and DWP don’t appear to be under similar timescale constraints. I requested my tribunal, I ASKED to go to court in September 2017, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service responded that my case would be allowed in November 2017, despite DWP having sent a response that the case should not be heard. That ‘do not allow’ response will throw some people, and they will give up, I didn’t. 

My case wasn’t heard until July 2018, and the process was horrendous, not through any fault of the panel members, but because I have disabilities. I’ll park the Auschwitz reference that they were “Only doing their jobs.”, but the case due before mine had failed to attend, another opt-out, another non-statistic that could possibly become a different type of statistic. I was cross-examined  by a panel, checking for inconsistencies in the information I had provided, there are no inconsistencies, because this life is the only one I have, there’s no fabrication or elaboration, this is what I have to live with, or not live at all. I didn’t understand the squiggles on the paper when I was eventually re-admitted to the court room, it took me at least a day, perhaps more, to be able to read that sweat-crumpled sheet of A4 declaring me ‘disabled enough’.

I will be re-assessed for PIP in 2020, to check if I still have brain injuries, but I’ll need to trigger the process myself, no less than 14 weeks prior to the expiry of my award. With brain injuries, that compromise my cognitive functioning. These are the systems I’m trying to function within. Tell me they’re not a hostile environment.