#i have mild ocd (by which i mean ocd is not the worst of my problems lol)

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

mental health check. i checked. its still FUCKING THERE-

[goingrampant]

The Boys #2 notes: pages 17-20

There's a bit about Butcher getting Mother's Milk back in the game sandwiched inside a longer segment about Butcher recruiting Wee Hughie.

Mother's Milk (who got his bizarre name for equally bizarre reasons I'll get into later) is a huge, hulking Black man drinking from a mug reading "bad ass", whose stereotypical nature is somewhat subverted by him also having a neurotic, nerdy personality. In the show, he has OCD (and normal body proportions), but I'm not sure if that's a thing in the comics. The comic portrayal focuses on the angle of him having both masculine dominance and somewhat impotent nerdiness, which the show broadly applies to all the Boys characters. Here, he has a massive frame, spreads his legs, uses ebonics in a white-framed context where that could imply aggression, imposes dominance on the room, is portrayed as equally as powerful a figure as Butcher, but he complains Butcher doesn't use a coaster--that could leave a ring on the furniture! It's not effective humor, but I can at least see the structure of what is supposed to be a joke not wholly rooted in downward punching mean-spiritedness.

Mother's Milk is shown to be compassionate in a way that doesn't undermine his masculine prowess. When you're that butch, you can care about being a good role model for troubled kids without that detracting from it. He works as some kind of counselor for local teenagers at a community center, and he cares about being a good father to his teenage daughter, Janine... who is portrayed as a skanky ho stereotype to remind everyone how horrible these comics are.

The conflict on display is a teenage girl wanting to be more adult and openly sexual, and her father being concerned and wanting her to dress and behave more conservatively. That is, at its heart, a universal human drama everyone can relate to, but because it involves a Black teenage girl in this racist, sexist, hellhole comic, it's portrayed as trashy and hateful. Mother's Milk is portrayed as a stable figure who is the only one who's really reasonable, while Janine is portrayed as letting her bratty nature as a child combine with her offensively feminine nature to insult him as a poor man just trying to be a good father--as translated through the anti-Black filter into becoming a skanky ho stereotype: an exaggerated sexualized figure comparable to porn characters, with a skimpy outfit with a tacky top calling her breasts "my lumps", pigtails as allude to invitations to anal sex, exaggerated makeup, and all rendered as grotesque under the art style. She is, effectively, a degenerate figure akin to Benjamin the dog, which was only a few pages ago.

Butcher, as fascist Mary Poppins, studies the situation, determines that Janine is the problem as a degenerate figure, and cheekily sneaks off to make the world better. (Don't worry, he doesn't rape her... is a thing I have to say because that's a logical conclusion... This comic's pond scum.)

He follows her out the door and stops her before she gets in the car with three guys she probably intends to have consensual sex with to tell her to be a good daughter to her father and push her into a more conservative role not able to explore her own sexuality--in a context where he's portrayed as like a sex god himself. It's paternalistic, misogynistic, and super fucking racist. The three boys are portrayed as hoodlums in the worst racist stereotypes, with guns and aggressive ebonics to scare the white readers and make them cheer for Butcher expressing white masculine dominance in scaring them off. Also, one Black guy has a cannabis hat, thereby portraying him as a degenerate druggie/Rastafarian (itself associated with white fears of a Black uprising). It is suuuuper fascist!

Butcher approaches them with, at worst, mild rudeness for interrupting them by asking for "a quiet word with Janine", and they respond by completely flying off the handle. I can understand them being confused and annoyed, but they completely lose it and start waving guns at him. (Comparable to South of Nowhere's depiction of Black guys not understanding Black friends sometimes having white friends who may take up their time for conversation.) White guy shows up; Black guys flip out.

There's then a cathartic bit of Butcher, the dominant white guy, putting them in their place. Cannabis Hat points a gun at him; Butcher takes it away, arms it, gives a one-liner, and scares them away. He gives Janine a talking-to about how she should respect her father, a hardworking man, and disrespects her mother in a misogynistic digression ("a stupid, drunk slag"). This gets through to her, so she goes home, apologizes to her father, and recommits to normative patriarchal values. As a result, Mother's Milk ends up rejoining the Boys, presumably impressed by Butcher.

I am absolutely serious here:

THIS READS LIKE NAZI PROPAGANDA

I need a shower.

[cthulhubert]

I posted 28,458 times in 2022

That's 2,097 more posts than 2021!

78 posts created (0%)

28,380 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@argumate

@ernilthur

@sweetest-garlic

@bdigfreakingwooper

@preggo-my-eggo-meggo

I tagged 18,154 of my posts in 2022

Only 36% of my posts had no tags

#what can i queue - 13,722 posts

#words - 503 posts

#long post - 428 posts

#deja vu - 352 posts

#rationality - 240 posts

#endorsed - 213 posts

#frog - 206 posts

#goal body - 163 posts

#homestuck - 130 posts

#lemon text - 123 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#a wizard appretice has such bad ocd he discovers a conspiracy to rule the world and has to get a princess and her pet gremlin to save his li

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The worst thing about Blasphemous is that they never added Achievements for any of the expansions (fyi: all included in the price of the game now).

Stir of Dawn added New Game+ with three choices of “Penitence” that make the game harder (you can only do one per run, and each gives you a unique bead on the next NG+), a series of five new bosses, and a gold sink donation box that gives you a bunch of bonuses, including a unique skin when you max it out.

Strife and Ruin added a Boss Rush mode, a series of five platforming challenges (that are part of a crossover with Bloodstained), and new prayers and beads.

And Wounds of Eventide added two new bosses that you have to beat to get a new Heart which adds a second phase to the second to last and final boss fights which gives you the True ending.

I’ve done all of these now because they were fun but I crave external validation of the matter!

12 notes - Posted May 6, 2022

#4

Bought a gallon capacity (four liters, actually) insulated water jug, mostly on a whim. It’s not bad but it doesn’t really offer much over my old stand by 40oz bottle beyond mild physical comedy. Every time I use it I legit feel like this:

12 notes - Posted June 23, 2022

#3

Blasphemous, a 2D retro styled action platformer is on sale for 75% off (6.24$) on Steam, on GoG, AND on Nintendo’s store for the Switch (those are all links). Steam’s, at least, ends April 4th.

There’s a sequel announced for 2023 and that’s an instant buy for me now.

I started out kind of lukewarm on this game but by the time I beat the first boss, I was kind of in love? The platforming stuff gave me some big old school Prince of Persia vibes (maybe it’s the instant death spikes); and the combat is fun. Some of those exploration/metroidvania elements. It’s “Souls-like”, though the difficulty isn’t really turned up to 11, it’s just got the whole “parrying, death means you need to go reclaim something, health flasks that refill, story is mostly in item descriptions or hidden away” kinda thing. I know it’s been done before but I really loved the whole “Evil(er) Fantasy Catholicism” aesthetic.

CW: Lots of blood and gore and some pixelated bits and bobs, if you dislike that. And obviously some, uh, look at the name.

16 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

#2

"#arknights #I honestly enjoy the bafflement everything I see about this game (it's a game right?) induces" - look, it's simple: you play as a mesothelioma charity that inexplicably keeps getting involved in catgirl civil wars

I am now enlightened.

18 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Had another dream featuring tumblr mutuals and follows.

It was a fairly sprawling dream, and had something almost like an adventure narrative except it was really chill. Basically I went from place to place via various methods, accomplishing tasks. A lot of it blurred out of memory, but near the end I was at some kind of... distribution center? A giant blocky gray building full of offices and warehouses. I seem to recall it was a government service. I was definitely there with somebody else to pick up a large package. But I walked into one waiting room, possibly looking for water, and a bunch of trans and non-binary people from tumblr where there (I remember @beste-glatisant and @transgenderer, maybe @natalieironside?) and we shot the shit for a minute, and I mentioned how I’d run into TRAINS (I think but can’t be sure that this was something that actually happened in the dream, but I forgot except for the part where I referenced it later, during the same dream); which was... some kind of organization, except you always refer to its members/representatives as being the organization itself? The name is an acronym (and I think the T was for Trans). And all of you were excited and amazed and talked about how rare it is to run into them “organically”.

I was so caught up in pondering the implications, and the odd grammar, that I woke myself up.

42 notes - Posted February 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[hello-there-world]

so, Rewrite fun fact for you, because i thought of it:

y'know that one post that says something along the lines of "i can't make/write a neurotypical character because i don't know how neurotypical people act"?

that's me with the Fnaf characters in the Rewrite. and the Fnaf characters in general, but that's besides the point.

like i could Try, but i feel like the autism would seep in eventually at some point. so the closest i can get is "Character Is Autistic, But Either Masking Really Hard Or Doesn't Know They Are Autistic And Are Trying To Act "Normal"."

anyway, some fun facts about these guys (specifically the Afton and Emily Families):

based Charlie a bit after myself in that she has a mix of autism and moral OCD (i'm not officially diagnosed in either, and don't really wanna be for Reasons. i'm fine just being sure due to research and just being Self-diagnosed). she's got a strong sense of justice (and is Incredibly stubborn about it) thanks to the autism, but her moral OCD is more about protecting others and trying to keep her morals consistent. if she feels that she failed to keep someone safe or out of trouble? that can be enough to send her into a breakdown and/or spiraling. and, because she's Stubborn As Hell, she generally doesn't want any help dealing with it unless someone is adamant in helping. this is also why she doesn't like dealing with moral dilemmas

Charlie also has that thing where you feel all of your emotions Very strongly, and it can become a problem. problems people would, normally, be mildly annoyed about, can make her Pissed. she seems very excitable at little things (this makes people confuse her for an extrovert). she gets saddened or panicked at mild inconveniences. you get the idea

Mike, as i have mentioned before, has the combination of autism and anxiety. i basically just took my own experiences and went "alright, add the Childhood Trauma this boy went through" and there you go.

Mike and Charlie have this sort of...protocol(? i guess) that they go through whenever Mike has a panic attack or meltdown. it goes one of three ways depending on what Mike's comfortable with: 1) No Touch (Charlie doesn't touch him at all, but stays near him and offers words of comfort until Mike's calm again), 2) Hand Hold (Charlie holds his hand and squeezes as a way of grounding him. she might also pat him on the shoulder or back as well to calm him), and 3) Squeeze (Charlie will squeeze-hug him and rub circles into his back until he calms down, also as a way of grounding him). if Mike doesn't give a clear answer, she defaults to 1. usually, 1 or 2 is used; 3 is usually for when Mike is just in the beginning stages and hasn't fully started panicking yet. Mike will usually indicate either by speaking the number or holding it up with his fingers which calming method he's fine with.

a lot of Charlie's methods for comforting someone with anxiety problems or having a meltdown is based on ways Henry used to comfort her and Sammy when they were little.

Henry is in a constant state of "Trying And Partially Failing To Mask", while William's just stopped caring.

William and Henry haven't considered that any of their kids are neurodivergent because "I mean, that's how I was as a kid, heck, I'm still like that now. Why would I view that as weird?"

William likes some of the worst textures, and his kids hate it. when he made the 1987 uniforms off of his own style, Mike and Alex had to wear shirts under their uniforms because otherwise they felt like clawing their skin off.

Sammy has Resting Bitch Face, is very blunt, and has mild anger issues. he's seen as pretty unapproachable due to this. he still has a lot of friends in his school's robotics club, though! plus Charlie and the Afton Kids.

Elizabeth is like her dad in that she just doesn't give a shit about masking. if people like her the way she is, then that's awesome! if anyone thinks she's annoying or weird, that's a them problem.

Cassidy likes what people would consider "weird" foods. he likes strawberry milk (projecting) and it's one of the few things he'll happily drink, noodles with tomato soup on it instead of regular spaghetti sauce (because regular sauce is too chunky (also kinda me projecting)), he will just. eat a sandwich with mayo and cheese on it (i would too bestie), you get the idea. long story short, with a few exceptions, Cass doesn't like things with too chunky textures.

Henry and the twins all have a special interest in robotics and mechanics, and Charlie has an added special interest in music boxes and how they work :] (hence why Marionn is soothed with a music box, specifically of Charlie's favorite song)

Oh, that's great! I totally get the "can't write non-autistic characters" thing, I can't either... Love all of this. Strawberry milk is pretty good, from what I remember, but I never got to have it much.

(Totally not me possibly mixing up strawberry milk & the strawberry yogurt on the pretzels I got today...)

[savofid]

So, I've been doing a lot of introspection lately, and I think I've got something figured out. Guess I'll do the CW thing cause I'm gonna be talking about mental health and abuse and my own troubles in that. If you don't like hearing about stuff like that, this blog isn't for you, because this is where I often scream into the void when I'm having a breakdown.

Over the years since my initial mental break, I've referred to some parts of my mind having "voices." It's a rudimentary term, as no one term exists that can encapsulate all of them. They're intrusive thoughts, urges, obsessions. They're tugs in my mind towards some task or state.

The three disorders I have are general anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder. And I don't mean "I like things neat." If you saw my bedroom, you would immediately see that the opposite is true. This creates a... Unique situation where I have three different disorders, equally strong and fueled by the same source, that being fear, and they all want something different.

My anxiety is rooted with my 6th ex, who was a manipulative psychopath who controlled every aspect of my life outside of work. Well, I'm away from her at work, so at least I have a space to decompress, right? No, because I was working for the government at the time and my work was very controlled. So I went from a controlling environment to another one and had nothing of my own to hold onto anymore to the point where I finally broke. I started having violent and aggressive intrusive thoughts. Thankfully, I never acted on them.

My depression has been with me since early childhood. I had my first real suicidal ideations when I was 8, all from a complete lack of self worth, the roots of which I don't wanna talk about again at this moment. I distinctly remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom drawing a picture of how my view of a pretty girl and my view of myself holding hands, all with one word written on the bottom: Impossible. Once I finished it, I crumped it, cried, and wished to die.

The OCD is genetic. Thanks, mom. I hope you rot in hell sooner rather than later. I'm at the point where I can tell if something is gonna become an obsession because of how I feel going into it. The example I give is my first flight on a plane. I was 20 years old, so plenty of time to develop a mild fear of something I'd never done before. As the date approached, I thought, "There's gonna be something about this flight that'll become a thing I now have to do every time I fly. No idea what it is, but it's gonna happen." Either I manifested it into my reality or it was mere happenstance, I flew on the left side of the plane for the three flights I took that day: Pittsburgh to Columbus, Columbus to Atlanta, Atlanta to San Antonio. A clear pattern emerged and now I HAVE to sit on the left side of every flight I take.

This is gonna seem unrelated and a jarring transition, but it'll tie in at the end.

I was raised around crazy people. My birth mother has OCD, psychopathy, and anxiety, my aunt is in and out of institutions, my uncle has issues with rage, my dad was clinically depressed, three of my four sisters have been institutionalized at least once and all of them have done some terrible things. If the least terrible thing was that one of them poisoned one of our cats, I'll let your imagination take you from there. Attempted murder is on that list, though, and they were only 8 and 10 when they made that attempt, and it was on their then toddler sister through poison. Strangely enough, that then toddler sister, now my directly older sister and elder of my full siblings, is the worst of them all. Little sister is just a psychopath like our mom.

Anyways, you spend so much time around crazy people and you learn to see it. You learn patterns, behaviors, tendencies, tells, ticks, and even being able to determine whether they're medicated or "feeling well so I didn't take them today." A complex coping mechanism. Because my family was basically the only people I knew for the first 6 years of my life, I didn't see them as crazy, naturally, and so my behavior, my coping mechanism, immediately extended to everyone around me. I spent 4 years in therapy for something one of my sisters did (and should've gone for much longer cause it's still unresolved and it's been 28 years), so had a very minor introduction to the world of psychology fairly early in my life. This later became something I enjoyed and I learned a lot about. I'm not a doctor, not a psychologist, hardly even an armchair therapist, but I feel like this combination of things has given me some very particular insight into people with clear issues.

A friend of mine in a chatroom was infamous for just dunking on everyone's taste in music and insisting theirs, which is highly niche and unique, is far better. He'd shit talk any song anyone talked about while going on at length about how the songs he liked were the best ever. It usually didn't bother me, which made me one of the few in there who actually liked him, but, one day, he struck a nerve. I was furiously typing up a massive response, detailing a singular event in his life that explains exactly why he is the way he is. I didn't send it, though, because I felt it would've hit way too close to home and I didn't wanna put him on blast. My assessment was that, when he was a young adult, he came out as gay to his parents, who didn't approve and kicked him out. He spent time homeless until a man took him in. The man was likely older and ended up being his first partner, and this the genre of music the guy in the chatroom liked is the same as his first partner, that he showed it to him. The man became more than just a partner but a father figure to him and they were together for a long time before things ended, likely suddenly and without proper closure, so he holds all of these things upon the highest of high pedestals.

You can probably see why that might cut a bit too deeply. Especially when, a few months later, he talked about his past and I was right on the money. He was kicked out at 19, spent almost a year homeless before a 40 year old man took him in and took care of him, the two of them ending up falling in love and being partners for 8 years. Then, the man just left one day and never came back, never called, nothing. All that I knew about him before he talked about it was that he was a gay musician in his late 30's living in Canada.

The way this ties in is that, over the years, I've likely done it to myself countless times, and these three disorders that are all fighting for control, all fueled by fear and equally strong, have mostly kept me somewhat mentally balanced. Past year and a half, though, they've been in flux. The spikes they cause, those sudden urges and impulses, are being, for lack of a better word, interpreted by this psychoanalytical process into more understandable ways. A thought, a feeling, a daydream, a fantasy, a pull upon my soul to do whatever it is that's the end goal of the winner. I've had auditory and visual hallucinations due to anxiety, like someone turning on a projector inside my mind, overlaying the fantasy dug up from deep within my mind over top of reality. It's terrifying.

Basically my brain has turned on itself and I'm stuck doing psychoanalysis on myself because I have become the crazy person.

/sigh/

I'm just angry right now, much like I have been for the past few weeks. Broke up with my partner because she only knew how to lie. Like, I can deal with her sleeping with other guys, just don't lie about it. I only ever wanted honesty and she couldn't even give me that. But I can't be in a relationship with someone I can't trust. Now, I made the mistake of dating the girl next door, so now I still have to see her nearly every day.

I feel bad for the guy she replaced me with while we were still together. Not because he's dating her or whatever, but because he's gonna have to go through what I went through back in January, where I very nearly killed myself, going so far as to give my roommate every sharp object I owned for my own protection before I reached the bottom of my depressive spiral. It was a rough three days but I ended up okay. Then, a few months later, once I had finally almost gotten past her, she dragged me back into her life, citing fear from the guy she replaced me with first. In reality, she just wanted to get laid and was having trouble finding someone to squeeze, and I fell for it. I was so close, up to the point where I'd go days without even thinking about her.

He's gonna have to go through that very soon. When I sent her a strongly worded and very long text telling her to basically get out of my life because she kept lying about the guy she was bringing around when I had asked her well over a month in advanced to make a little time for me cause I wanted to talk to her about some heavy stuff and she was always "too busy" and "he's just dropping off groceries" when he walks in empty handed right after parking and he's spending two, three nights in a row there without changing clothes. I said that it's gonna be three months and she'll find someone else to replace him with.

Well, it's been three months, and he was over this morning, only for him to be sent home in the late afternoon and another guy showed up an hour later. No, I'm not stalking them. I just spend a lot of time on my porch and have a functional pair of eyes, paranoid tendencies, and at least 3 functional brain cells. I look at every car and every person that comes in and leaves the parking lot because my eyes are attuned to movement and I react to the sound of people talking. I can hear them taking right now because I have a good sense of hearing. Couldn't tell you what they're talking about because I'm not listening.

That's not to say that I haven't had urges to hurt her. Not physically. I'd never lay my hands on someone that hadn't hit me first. I mean emotionally, tearing her apart with my words. Main reason I haven't is because she's not worth the jail time because I would not be kind. I've also had the urge to get her evicted, and have the evidence to back up the fact that she violates her lease on a daily basis. It would be petty as shit, but I could do it. However, I don't want that to come back to me or come across to the property manager like I'm a whiny baby. Yes, I have the entirety of the terms of my lease memorized because I kinda like not being homeless.

I just wish she'd move away so I can move on. Every time I see her, I get angry at her for wasting a year and a half of my life when there were other people who were interested that I turned down because I was committed to someone else. I've got no problem with open relationships and polycules and what have you. Given the right circumstances, I'd be down for that. However, I can't stand a liar, especially someone who lies about loving me.

And she would lie about anything. She flat out tried to tell me that she never eats with her hands. We went to 5 different restaurants on my birthday last year and everything was eaten with your hands: burgers, sandwiches, pizza. Either she is the worst liar I have ever met or she is one of the dumbest people I've ever known who is incapable of remembering something for more than 6 months. Or remembering that I worked at the restaurant she frequented on wing night and she always ate with her hands, complaining about how greasy her fingers were afterwards when we'd have a smoke before she went home, and I only started there in March and quit in July. She tried to claim this in April, so maybe no memory retention beyond a week, I guess. However, she holds down a job as a shift leader at a furniture store, so clearly that's not the case.

I was so angry about the whole ordeal with her that I needed to sit down and talk with a friend of mine who's a licensed therapist in Hungary. Wonderful, sweet woman. She helped guide me on what to do and how to handle the situation, so I followed her advice and tried to communicate with her. She responded with excuses, lies, and attempts to deflect. I then blew up a little bit and sent her a piece of my mind. It wasn't mean, it wasn't hurtful, it was just honest, meaning I very much restrained myself, cause part of me wanted to make it hurt. I decided against it because I doubt it's possible to make her feel anything.

And I really, really wanted to sit there and pick her apart and highlight that incident in her life that I've figured out through context clues and behaviors and just put her on blast. Just tear into her. But I was reminded of when I had a ex do that to me in the worst way possible: through a proxy. She used the Facebook account of the guy she was banging behind my back to weaponize my insecurities against me and the only thing that was stopping me from jumping from my 3rd floor balcony was the fact that I'd probably horrify whoever found me in the morning, and that went on for nearly two months. It doesn't matter how much I hate someone, I'd never subject them to that. It'd be extremely cruel and unfair because I'm an open book so my scars are visible for others to see. They're wounds no one can open again. With her, it's something she'd likely never tell anyone about in her life and would do a lot of damage.

My insecurities are a different story, as I tend to keep those personal. I know I'm not the best looking guy, and I've made peace with that. I'm just funny instead, and woo people with comedy. It's things like some of the deformities I have and the fact that I'll never have biological kids that claw at my insides. Combine that with my depression and you get someone who just hates themselves. Frankly, I hate my dick. I don't hate having one, just hating the one I got. It's not even about size, cause that's not the issue. I've got a deformity there and every partner I've ever had makes an effort to bring it up in some way and I just wish they'd fucking stop because they're either patronizing me or outright mocking me. They'll talk about how much they love it when we're together then immediately turn that against me once things end, even if they're the one who ended it through no action of my own.

I wish I didn't live in this country so I could actually afford to see a therapist instead of needing to be my own. It's getting really mentally taxing to let myself spiral just to get to the root of the issue.

But I am so very tempted to yell over at her place, "First guy wasn't enough for you today, so you had to drag another guy home? Is this why he left early, cause you lied to him about needing to do something, only to really be fucking someone else behind his back? Could just end things like an honest person would, but you're too scared that maybe this one won't work out so you keep him around as a backup, stringing him along with lies and excuses? Maybe I should let him know the next time he comes around."

I hate being right. I really do, and I genuinely feel bad for the guy she replaced me with. I'm not being facetious.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

fractured alliances more like fractured storytelling amirite 

[littleoddwriter]

Better Than Being Dead | Roman Sionis x Victor Zsasz | ZsaszMask

Frankly, I have no idea why I suddenly wanted to write this. But, uh, this is just me heavily projecting my Contamination OCD on Roman, because he has it (bc I say so) and- yeah.

summary; Roman has Contamination OCD (but he doesn’t know) and does some pretty irrational and awful things because of it. Victor is there for him.

notes; Contamination OCD; Vomiting; Holding one’s breath; Spitting; Washing one’s hands and body until one is bleeding; (mild) Past Child Abuse and Ableism; Anxiety; Crying; Hurt/Comfort.

Holding his breath, he waited until these people have passed him and then a few moments longer than that, just to be absolutely sure. Then, he released the breath he was holding, air rushing back into his lungs as he inhaled sharply. He was feeling a little dizzy, but it was alright. It was better than being dead. And he would have died for sure if he had breathed the same air as these people. They were dirty and sick and if he had inhaled when they’d walked past him, he would have contracted their illness and died. That was pure logic.

So, why was it that nobody around him understood him? Why did everyone mock him or yell at him? Why did everyone say he was sick in the head? He wasn’t the sick one – they were!

Roman’s father looked at him with open disgust and snarled, “Do you have to let everyone know that you’re crazy? It’s embarrassing.”

All he could do was shake his head and look at his feet. He couldn’t talk. There was so much spit in his mouth and he knew that if he opened it all his saliva would flood out, and then his father would be so much angrier with him. He couldn’t possibly swallow it. It was dirty. It would make him sick and then he would die.

So, when he finally had a moment to himself in the bathroom, he quickly looked around to make sure and then spit out all the saliva that had gathered in his mouth into the sink. He washed his hands and then his mouth. Twice. It wasn’t enough by any means, but it would have to do until he could finally go home and wash himself thoroughly.

When he got into the shower, he spent all his energy on scrubbing himself clean. His skin was red and irritated from the hot water. Some spots were even bleeding when he climbed back out of the shower because he had scrubbed them so much. It was painful, but it was better than being dead.

Those were the things he’d done when he’d been eight years old.

Now, at age forty-six, he hasn’t really changed at all.

The only thing he’s stopped doing a long time ago was to hold his breath whenever people walked past him. It wasn’t that he suddenly realised that it was unnecessary, but because he was put into more and more situations in which strangers were all around him. So, unless he had wanted to die from the lack of oxygen, he forced himself to endure it and breathe shallowly instead.

Nonetheless, over the years he started to wash his hands more and more, until he bled constantly and his skin was raw, rough and broken. That was up to the day he started wearing gloves at all times. They have somewhat become his trademark, along with his flashy looks, and he liked that no one ever questioned just why he was never to be seen without a pair of leather gloves with his initials embroidered on the back. They all just took it as another quirk he displayed.

It was better and easier if no one knew the truth. Well, no one but his right-hand man and partner Victor Zsasz; but he would never tell a soul, so it wasn’t a problem for him to know.

Of course, Roman often wondered why he was like this; why he had these thoughts and urges, these compulsions. There was no life before them either. He had done these irrational things, due to his anxieties ever since he’d been three or four years old. And at first he hadn’t seen anything wrong with it, but his father sure had. That was how he realised that what he’d been doing wasn’t normal at all.

Roman Beauvais Sionis was the odd one out. Of course he was. He always has been.

Nowadays it didn’t bother him so much anymore. He’s found his people and his purpose. He would own Gotham soon enough and then he wasn’t going to be the outsider anymore; not by any means, no.

Unfortunately, none of that changed the fact that he was currently bent over his toilet, dry heaving, after he’s stuck his own finger in the back of his throat to make himself vomit. It was utterly disgusting and depraved. He hated himself for it. He couldn’t help it. He had tried – of course he had – but to no avail.

The little killing he’s had Victor do for him, has left him with a blood spatter on his cheek. It had run down his face. He was contaminated. He was going to be sick and die.

So, as soon as he got upstairs, he spit out all the accumulated saliva in his mouth into the sink, got undressed and showered, washing himself thoroughly and spitting in the drain every few minutes. He couldn’t swallow it. It was still contaminated. He had scrubbed his face until he was free of the stranger’s blood and instead soiled by his own.

All the while, his mind was screaming at him to purge himself. He might have gotten some of the blood in his system, after all. He felt so sick to his stomach. It was in his throat. He needed to get rid of it.

And so he did.

It was one of the worst things he’s ever done because of these fears, but it was better than being dead.

Afterwards Roman was still shaken up. He sat on his chaise longue with his feet tucked up and a Martini in his hand, waiting for Victor to return from cleaning up the scene with his other men and tallying up the kills.

Skin tone-coloured band-aids were stuck on his face now, making him feel ugly and reminding him of exactly what he’s just done. In a way, he couldn’t make himself care enough, though. He couldn’t be enraged about it. He was too exhausted.

Finally, after what felt like forever, his partner returned to him. By now, Roman didn’t even have to say anything anymore, as Victor immediately walked into the bathroom and cleaned himself up first. Only when he was truly clean, was he allowed to touch Sionis at all.

Anxiously, he waited for Zsasz to enter the living area and actually come to him. He needed him so much and he hated that he did.

“Roman?” Victor asked quietly, standing in front of him now, hovering.

Quickly, Roman put down his empty glass and stretched his arms out to Zsasz with tears shining in his eyes. Without any sort of hesitation, Victor’s arms wrapped around him as he sat down next to Roman and cradled him. Roman’s head was tucked away safely between Victor’s head, his chest and his arms. Zsasz’s hands soothingly rubbed over his back and he murmured quiet reassurances to him, but Sionis barely registered them at all.

Then, he started crying. Violent sobs ripped through his body as he convulsed, screaming into his partner’s chest, crying out in anguish. It went on for so long, perhaps half an hour, but probably longer. When he calmed down a little, eventually, his face stayed buried in Victor’s chest. He couldn’t look him in the eyes just yet. It may not have been the worst moment Zsasz has ever witnessed of him, but it felt as thought it was his most vulnerable. He hated it.

“I’ve got you, boss. It’s okay, I promise,” Victor kept murmuring into his hair, where he’s been nuzzling him this entire time.

“I just want to stop feeling this way. I want to quit doing these things to myself. But I don’t know how, Victor,” Roman choked out, his voice raw and abused from crying and making himself throw up beforehand.

“We’ll figure it out, Roman. Huh? I’ve got you. You’re not alone with this,” Zsasz spoke calmly, continuing to rub Roman’s back gently.

“’Kay. You’re right. I trust you, baby,” he admitted quietly, tightening his grip around Victor’s waist momentarily.

That was that, then. He wasn’t alone. He had Victor, who was so dedicated to protecting and caring for him, by his side. With that in mind, a small smile fought its way to his lips. He could do this. He could endure it. Zsasz wouldn’t leave him alone with it.

Then, Roman was so exhausted that he finally found some peace as he fell asleep in Victor’s arms soon after.

[the-u-s-s-enterprise]

This is a long one, but I love Undertale.

Eighteen-years old, fresh out of their sheltered hometown and onto a liberal arts college with more diverse people than they had ever experienced in their life.  They’re nervous about school, the up in ante, the new lifestyle, the new freedom.  They found their place with some friends that they wouldn’t think about in a few years time, people that would come and go, and a couple that would stay, but the first step on their journey into adulthood.

This is fall of 2015.  Their parents dropped them off with a teary goodbye less than a month ago, and Undertale comes out today.  They don’t know about it.  At least not until Steam Train plays it not too long later.  They watch a cute game played and commentated by a duo from their favorite YouTube gaming channel.  It’s exactly their style, a cute, fun game with interesting and lovable characters.

The first episode doesn’t even span the tutorial, and the kid doesn’t bother waiting for the rest.  They load up steam and buy it, playing it well into the night, sobbing at the heartbreaking conclusion and not knowing that five years later they would break into tears over hearing “Home” for the first time in years.

I played Undertale because I thought it was cute, the designs were fun, the mechanics were interesting, the story was easy enough to follow.  I liked video games, but not enough to spend money on them only to get bored halfway through, so I watched a few Let’s Play YouTube channels to experience them without having to devote my constantly overstimulated brain to playing them.

Undertale was different.  I don’t choose the things I become obsessed with (do you think I would be thinking about It: Chapter 2 over a year later if I could?), but when I fall into something, I fall hard.

I played it through, and then I watched Steam Train, and then I watched Press Heart to Continue, and JackSepticEye, and Markiplier, and Dan and Phil, and streamers I don’t even remember the names of in order to see every single reaction and playthrough I could see.  Don’t get me wrong, I played again and again, too, even forcing my friends not to play it if I wasn’t there to watch.

In fact, I distinctly remember a friend, I was watching him play and telling him where the secrets were and the background for every little thing that wasn’t explicit in the game.  He loved it.  We played the entire game in three sessions, the first involved us going through the Ruins and saving after meeting Sans and Papyrus, the second going about halfway through Waterfall, and the third was the rest of the game in a six-hour session.

All in all, I can’t even count how many times I’ve witnessed the game, nor how many times I’ve read the Wiki pages, clicking “random page” over and over again until I had circled back around to the start.  If I had to guess, I’ve played the pacifist playthrough about ten times on my own, and watched it anywhere between 20 and 30 between different YouTubers and rewatches of the same playthroughs.  I’ve seen the genocide run a fair number of times, likely close to ten, and various neutral runs in the teens.

Not only that, I spent hours in the library with my headphones on doing homework, listening to not the OST, but the ten-hour extended versions of my favorite songs, “Bonetrousle”, “Hopes and Dreams”, “Death by Glamour”, and the ever so aptly named “NGAHHH!!” just to name a few.

And don’t get me started on the glitch characters.  The hours I spent looking up information on Gaster because I was too scared to mod my own game are endless.

So, I guess you could say I’m very familiar with the game.  It meant a lot to me as a young adult with fresh freedom, a story about a lost child finding a family of their own.  My first and only tattoo is of the delta rune (although people will try to tell me it’s from Legend of Zelda).

It’s hard to talk about, but I don’t have the best mental health, with constant long-running depression, social anxiety, and mild OCD, my brain tends to run a mile a minute, and I had a really hard time making friends in high school, which resulted in me not having any friends at all after my friends from middle school decided they were too good for me.

I spent the better part of my four years in high school eating lunch alone and not going out on the weekends because no one wanted me to.  In senior year, I managed to make friends with a few people, but nothing deep or long lasting.

Cue college, a fresh start where I could be exactly who I was supposed to be.  I came out as asexual on the second day there, not knowing that my involvement with the LGBT organization would lead me to realize that I was also nonbinary and a lesbian.  But needless to say, I was an outcast looking for a place to call home.

I found it at school, making a couple lifelong friends (I love you girls!) and finding a place in coming to my own leadership abilities and my desire to be a role model and resource for young LGBT people.  Always in the background was Undertale.

Here was this game, though with a few flaws, was the greatest game I had ever played, as I remarked on every little detail from the stunning backgrounds to the fun yet challenging fight mechanics to every little piece of witty dialogue.

I remarked on Toby Fox and his ability to create this game almost entirely on his own, coding and designing and writing music.  He didn’t do it alone, but so much of the game was him, and seeing someone accomplish something that meant so much to me was an inspiration.

I looked at this game and saw a breathtaking story, hints of the twist being woven into every pixel, parallels at every turn, tidbits that you had to play the game ten times (like I did) to catch pieces of backstory that were so vital to fully understanding a character.

Not only that, but I looked at this game and I saw me.  I saw the cute and honestly rather stupid love story between Alphys and Undyne, between a shy (presumably) bisexual lizard girl and a buff (presumably) lesbian fish lady.  They were awkward and uncomfortable and bashful and I loved every part of their interactions.  They cared for each other and their story being thrown in and accepted, not a word said about it except outside the game.  And don’t get me started on the guards.

But beyond that, I saw Frisk, a child without a denoted gender, which many people took to mean you could impose the gender you wanted, but to nonbinary people, to people like me, they saw a main character that used they/them pronouns without it being a joke, without it being asked about, without the characters ever slipping up or even having to guess.  They did it because that’s who Frisk is, and they love Frisk.

I see this game, this funny, heart-wrenching, sweet, and wonderful game, and I see found family.  I see a child who we know went up Mount Ebbott knowing that children who went up there didn’t come back find people (monsters) that loved them, cared about them, even after only knowing them for what we can assume is a day.

Frisk finds these monsters and they loved them for who they are.  The love these characters share meant more to me than I ever could have imagined they would, the background to my introduction to freedom, the meeting of my best friends, the discovery of myself, the growth of my leadership and motivation.  They were there.  They were always there for me, and now, today, on the day of the five year anniversary of my own self discovery, I listen to “Home” and I cry.

I cry for Toriel, who lived alone in the Ruins for years, I cry for Sans and Papyrus who take care of each other in more way than they know, I cry for Undyne who’s desperate to prove herself and protect her people, I cry for Alphys who lived with the guilt of her mistakes and wanting nothing more than to make amends for the monster she thought she was, I cry for Asgore who was so overcome with grief he became the worst version of himself.

I cry for Asriel for obvious reasons.  And I cry for Frisk, a child that wanted love and found it in the journey, just like I did.

I listen to “Home” and I cry because it is home.  It’s a story about love in the time I needed it the most, shaping me into the person I am today, even five years later.

Because despite everything, it’s still me. 

[system-of-a-feather]

5,15 & 20 for the ask meme?

5. How many people know that you’re a system?

Quite a few at this point actually. I’ve kind of taken to being open about being a system so like, my mom and oldest sister know (my dad and middle don’t because they aren’t safe / worth it to tell). My fiance, his mom, and I think by extension his dad know. Four close friends know. I think I mentioned it to four or five of my college friends that I hang out with when we are in the same town. My therapist and the three or four psychiatrists and two doctors I’ve been to since I was diagnosed. I also told some of my mental health organizations that I try to be part of and a few Psych professors for context to some discussions so like... probably more than I’m willing to count. I don’t go around telling everyone, but if I consider someone I hope to be good friends with / hang out regularly, if it is important to a conversation / medical history I usually tell them.

To be honest I’ve dealt with some people deciding to ghost me / shun me / avoid me once I tell them my diagnosis because of the stigma, so I typically am pretty up front with friends at this point so that if they are going to be the type that are not going to give me a chance due to preconceived ideas and stigma on a disorder I can’t change, then they can get out of my life early. 

15. Have your headmates got any disorders or disabilities that you don’t have or vice versa?

Kind of? Maybe? Our therapist hasn’t been ever too clear with the diagnosises of specific alters, but Ray has / had notable anger issues, Aderis was being considered for having BPD, and Lucille used to have autistic traits - though I strongly doubt this system would be considered autistic as much as it is likely what our first therapist (who specialized in autism) stated was the alternative if we didn’t have it which was that “we grew up in an environment where two of the people we interacted with the most were autistic and learned a lot of behavioral and personality traits that would be seen in someone with autism”.

Beyond that though, most of the differences are more of “who has MORE experiences with XYZ” because we all have OCD, Trichotillomania, GAD, and some stomach issues that have yet to be diagnosed though the intensity varies between parts. I’d probably say myself and an alter we don’t talk about on here have OCD the worst by far in the system where it is mild in others.

I also individually dissociate way harder than the rest of the system as I specifically have dissociative disorders within my dissociative disorder XD Cause while it rarely / doesn’t happen for others in the system, I do experience dissociative fugue, amnesia, and occasionally severe derealization / depersonalization without switching. 

20. Who’s your newest alter?

“Newest” is hard to define and really hard to understand cause you gotta consider dormancy and if being an undefined fragment counts and then trying to figure out where all that lines up - but to make things simple - if newest means “newest to come to awareness and work with the system and form a more solid identity” then that would maybe probably be Jii? Either Jii or another alter we don’t talk about on this blog XD

Currently I would think of it to be Jii though. They’ve been around as a floating blob of a fragment until recently where due to a mix of trauma processing and stuff they’ve rooted down more firmly and been working more into the system.

Theoretically they’ve been around for like... four to six years, but formally to our awareness and to having a more established presence and existence, they’ve been around for like... maybe a month? Time is hard to judge XD

-Riku (Host)

[steve62044-blog]

Storytime Kittens

A puzzle full of kittens? I know, right?! Even though this isn’t my typical genre of puzzle image, it was still pretty darned enjoyable and I would recommend it – especially to multi-generational families who enjoy puzzling together.

Every time I assemble a Cobble Hill puzzle I am reminded of what a great quality product they put out. The linen finish on their puzzles gives not only a great hand feel, but cuts down on glare and make for such a pleasant puzzling experience. The pieces are thick, they fit together well, and the image reproduction is lovely. Why am I not assembling more of their puzzles? I have no answer to that right now – because I should be, they make me happy.

This is a “family puzzle”, which means that there are three different sizes of pieces. And this brand does it the way that seems most practical to me; large on one side, medium in the middle, and smallest on the other side. I have assembled family puzzles where the largest pieces are the outer edge and the pieces get smaller towards the middle – that makes no sense to me. The point of a family puzzle is that everyone can work together, but if the entire outside of the puzzle has to be put together before the smaller pieces fit anywhere, you cannot work together; you have to wait for one section to be finished before you can actually begin. Nonsensical in my book.

Even though I almost always work on family puzzles by myself, I like that Cobble Hill family puzzles are made so that everyone can work together.

This side of the puzzle has the large pieces, and takes up the most space. I love the bright colors and fun image, it made for an entertaining assembly.

You can see in this image how the pieces fade from larger to smaller, and it’s pretty seamless and well done. And even though we all know kitties aren’t my preferred animal for wooden jigsaw puzzles this was some really beautiful artwork by Amy Rosenberg.

By the way, I’ve had sort of an epiphany about why I enjoy family puzzles so much; and it truly just occurred to me this morning as I was getting ready to type up this post. It’s the sorting! It’s the ease of sorting differently sized pieces that almost buoys my spirits. Sorting is the worst part of puzzles for me, even though my mild OCD requires that I sort; but having it made so much easier and faster because of the different sizes of the pieces makes all the difference.

[bigskydreaming]

fhalkfhaklfhlkak i hate this

TW really truly literally ruined the word ‘spark’ for me. Like the whole damn word. I hear it now and I’m like, NOPE, like...idk, some people who cringe when they hear the word moist or panties. Apologies to anyone who hates those words and cringed, i dont actually know if thats a thing or if like, I just have weird friends. Probably just the latter.

But anyways, Im just like...lmfao. Its so visceral too? Like I have this one original project, Waveriders, that I’ve been fiddling with off and on in the background of other projects for awhile, might have talked about it on here, idk, I don’t keep track. 

Basically its a far future sci-fi novel/setting for linked shorter works set on a gas giant that was settled by humans who figured that they can’t possibly be stepping on anyone’s toes there, its a freaking gas giant, hello, no one’s home, right? They literally have to make their own ground by using technology to form anti-gravity wells in the habitable zone of the atmosphere and like, make floating cities and then these kind of buoys scattered across the planet that create these electromagnetic currents that flow in specific ‘routes’ between the cities, and people travel between them in these flying ships that use magnetized hulls and solar sails to ride these currents, and blah blah blah, yada yada yada, bc like, why would I resist an opportunity to have floating cities and sky pirates and ancient cyborg machine dragons? Doesn’t make sense. 

Anyway, so couple thousand years after settling this planet, and by then for Plotty Reasons there are people who have what’s called waveriding abilities, like they can ‘hack’ certain wavelengths or types of energy and manipulate them in various ways, but only one kind of energy per person, and they each have their own little names and niches. 

So, y’know, basically just like ATLA, except for like, its energy powers and there are cyborg machine dragons and floating cities and sky pirates, obvsly. Plus areas of totally fucked up gravity called the badlands that are all like, criminal underworld metropolis because normal people are like lol nope, we like it when up is up and down is down, all of this is very just...nope. And also because shocking and totally unexpected plot twist, they were totally wrong about the planet being uninhabited just cuz it didn’t have Earth type ground...like, so in addition and on top of and in conjunction with all of the above and whatnot, there are these beings called Chaos Angels, that are basically like sentient quantum waveforms that can take any shape or appearance, but just, have no physical substance and yet are really good at faking that they’re not totally there when they fuck with humans, which they do a lot, because well. Why not, y’know?

But other than that, its exactly like ATLA. I’m a derivative hack. I disgust myself, truly I do.

BUT the point of this particular synaptic misfire aka ADHD ramble, is that so, okay, these different types of not!benders are all called waveriders as an overall umbrella term, but with ten different subsets of this in total, right? So people who can ‘hack’ light and manipulate it in various ways are called brightriders, and people who are tuned into soundwaves are called echo-riders, and some can manipulate the more electricity-skewed side of the electromagnetic spectrum and those are shockriders and the ones who skew more to the magnetic side are steelriders but I’m probably gonna change that because it sounds like a porno? Yeah no, just saw it outside of my notes for the first time and can confirm, definitely sounds like a porno so they’re not gonna be called steel-riders, but they will be called something steel-rider-esque. You get it.

And then there are the five weird ones that people aren’t totally quite sure how their waveriding shticks work because the kinds of energy they hack aren’t like....the kinds that work in the same way as the others with their easily discernible and patternistic wavelengths, and scientists and scholars are always arguing like but skyriders aren’t even in the same FIELD as the other waverider types because gravity isn’t even an actual ENERGY, just because we talk about gravity waves doesn’t mean they’re remotely the same thing as lightwaves, they make no SENSE, and I’m just like hahaha, I am your god, fictional scientists. Fucking deal with it. Plus it does make sense, you just don’t know the Secret Rules and Logistics that I do, pfft. 

Anyway, so the other types are boomriders who hack kinetic energy and skyriders of course obviously manipulate gravity, and then the last three are really weird, and super rare and thus don’t really have set names and just have lots of nicknames and are often just thought to be rumors. So those are the bio-riders who manipulate chemical energy though it often gets mistakenly referred to or just handwaved as being ‘life energy’ as though that’s a thing, ugh future way advanced people are so dumb sometimes, honestly. But so they can manipulate biological processes in various ways and do things with healing and also hurting, and basically just don’t piss one off ever. Like. You’ll die. And then there’s the psi-riders, who are essentially psychics and hack brainwaves, and I’m not at all bitter that I lack the balls to just go for broke and call them ghost riders like I want to, because ghost riders obviously sounds way cooler?? But also, Marvel would definitely sue?? Because they’re just, like that. 

And like, the last of the Weird Ones are the ones so super rare and also so hard to actually....tell if someone actually IS one, that most people think they don’t actually even exist and are just an unsubstantiated like, theoretical idea some scientist had once while high and then just, never shut up about so eventually the idea caught on. And those are the quantum-riders, or luck-riders, basically they theoretically manipulate quantum wavelengths in ways that are almost impossible to identify, like theoretically they wouldn’t even know they were doing it? Anyway, so lots of times, what are actually quantum-riders are just jealously thought to be like, really fucking lucky assholes. Even though the way their powers work really don’t have anything to do with luck or even probability, specifically, like that’s a simplistic approximation and its more like they manipulate possibilities but also shut up me, nobody cares.

ANYWAY, people who can count and who actually bothered to would probably notice by now like the funky little geniuses they are that all of those still only adds up to nine. And that’s because of the last one, the one that SHOULD go up in the brightrider, shockrider, notpornIswear!steel-rider hierarchy or taxidermy or whatever the fuck. And these are the ones who manipulate what’s essentially thermal energy, or more accurately the microwave-skewing side of the ultraviolet spectrum whereas brightriders are just the ones who skew more to the infrared side of it.

And the long and short of all of this Unnecessary-ness and the source of my fit of pique and ensuing ramble-palooza....is that ORIGINALLY, they were SUPPOSED to be called sparkriders.

But OBVIOUSLY I can’t call them that anymore, because like. I tried, and I was like ugh you drama queen slash whiny pissbaby, it was just a shitty teen supernatural show and SPARK WAS NEVER EVEN CANON, do not let THEM win and ruin a perfectly good classification name! But I did. I did let it ruin them, and its. Well. Its a problem, because I kept thinking up ways to kill off the sparkrider characters for absolutely no reason at all instead of like....thinking up ways to make the plot do what it was outlined to do in their parts of the story.

This may come like, way out of left field, and just SHOCK and STUN and BEWILDER some of you, like....no way, srsly? But yeah, true story, among my many canon mental neuroses like ADHD, PTSD, magical depression hour and super fun anxiety like....there is a tiny possibility (aka actual diagnosis) that while I don’t talk about this much, or ever really, I do have a smidge of ye old OCD? Its not like, a big thing and doesn’t really affect my daily routines and that’s pretty much why I never usually bring it up or list it alongside the rest of the crap on my neurodivergence resumé or whatever, because like, there’s already WAY too many misconceptions out there about what OCD actually is and what constitutes it, and tons of people are always jokingly but also thinking they’re kinda half serious, like ‘oh I’m so OCD about this and this and that’ and its like. LOL. Are you though? You sure?

Anyway, but point being, the way mine manifests for me is like...not actually a problem? Like, I don’t actually have any REAL complaints about it at all, just half-assed little fits of pique ones like this, which is the other part of why I never bring it up, because too often ppl just can’t fathom that OCD or even any kind of neurodivergence can be...WANTED, or a good thing, and lololol, that’s ableism, folks. But its true, I don’t actually mind mine at all, even if it occasionally makes things frustrating, when I get stuck like I am now. But the flip side of it is....its actually a pretty huge part of my creativity and just the way my mind works in general....like, what people accredit to me being particularly insightful about character analysis or drawing connections or stuff like that in meta or fics or my novels or worldbuilding...that’s what it is. That’s my OCD in action. 

My brain like...REQUIRES that I find patterns in....pretty much everything. Even day to day mundane stuff too, though like I said, its mild enough there that it doesn’t fuck with my routines too much, but like, I have to order things into nice, neat patterns and groupings. And if there aren’t any that are immediately obvious, I kinda pretty much HAVE to dig deeper until I find some on a slightly deeper level, something beneath the surface or first glance, and keep going until I find something.....or worst case scenario, I have to like....add stuff and embellish and fill in gaps with my own ‘content’ until I have the rough edges rounded off into something that CAN be stacked neatly atop some other part of the story or whatever it is I’m focusing on? And the obsessive-compulsive part for me is like, lol, I gotta find it SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW. 

My brain literally won’t shut off or grudgingly accept being diverted to a different subject until I’ve made some kind of pattern or flowchart or classification system. It will literally keep me up for hours, going over the same things over and over from every angle until I find SOME way to....reassemble or restructure it in some nice, neat little order of some type. I mean that’s basically what it is. My brain insists on me forming some semblance of order out of any glimpse I have of what I would otherwise term creative chaos. And it won’t give up until it gets what it wants, which when you throw in my ADHD and how often I’ll get derailed off on slight tangents but with my OCD then sooner or later forcing me back to the original focus, rinse and repeat ad nauseam....like. LOL. I learned to operate on very little sleep from a pretty young age by necessity, its just...my brain, dudes. Its just like that.

But the perks are like, I pretty much think this is WHY I’m so creative....because my brain, for as long as I can remember, has always just kinda....forced me to be? Also probably has a lot to do with well...eh, I don’t need to talk about that right now. Whatever. Anyway, point being, so....I do like the end results very much so, and for all its....Why Must You Be Like This eccentricities, I’m quite attached to my brain and would not be very likely to agree to a trade even were one possible. I mean don’t get me wrong, I could do without the PTSD and anxiety, if we’re just, like....talking some pruning shears or whatever, but the actual creative machinery, I’m keeping. Ultimately it just means I really fucking like patterns and finding patterns or making patterns where previously there were none, or at least none that were easy to spot.

But ugh, man, these are the rare times when I’m like omg, just call it a day, we don’t ACTUALLY have to come up with the perfect replacement name for that one relatively small and insignificant detail of a much larger story that isn’t even in the Top Ten list of my main priorities at the moment. And my asshole of a brain is just like....yeah no, we gotta. You know the rules dude, you decided it was official, that name didn’t work anymore and was never gonna, so now we gotta find a replacement or else things will be UNEVEN?? The pattern will be...missing a piece? There will be CHAOS AND ANARCHY IN THE STREETS THAT RUNNETH OVER WITH BLOOD? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT??

And so I’m like....literally sitting here googling synonyms for spark because I’m just like that sometimes, lmfao. Oh and of course its gotta be a GOOD replacement, naturally. I can’t just shoehorn in a somewhat acceptable substitute that in the back of my mind I’m expecting to only be temporary, until I come up with something better. See, because my brain will KNOW, and it will NOT be okay with that, because that is CHEATING. And my brain, apparently, has strong feelings about cheating, which is weird and fairly unexpected of me, IMO.

Anyway, kudos to anyone who actually read through that instead of scrolling, I honestly have zero idea why I felt like sharing it, I just did and thus I did. *shrugs* 

[pure-o-soft]

Hello. I wanted to ask if you've ever heard of OCD coming in episodes? I did a google search and apparently there's a little bit of research on that, but I realize the current model is that OCD is a chronic illness. I'm asking because I'm diagnosed with OCD, but for me it comes and goes. I've done a lot of reading and what I deal with during the episodes sounds exactly like OCD (specifically pure O), except the symptoms eventually fade altogether. Last year I had a months long episode, but 1/2

but this year I'm functioning as if I never had the episode. The episodes definitely disrupt my life when I do have them, at my worst I was going to bed early because I couldn't cope with the anxiety my intrusive thoughts gave me. Someone suggested that it might be more like a reaction I have to something in my life, rather than the full blown disorder, sort of like how people without panic disorder can still experience isolated panic attacks? Oh, I do plan on asking my therapist about this

Hi friend!

OCD can come in several severities, ranging from severe and chronic to mild. Even for someone who has very severe OCD, it is very common for it to happen in episodes. I commonly hear about people experiencing the disorder in this way, and experienced it like this myself!

You can be triggered by something which causes a long period of obsessing and anxiety, but sometimes that anxiety and obsessing can go away for a period of time too. This can happen for a few reasons! Some people can find reassurance that they cling to (until they are triggered again or their disorder thinks of a way around this reassurance), sometimes they just haven’t been triggered for a while, and sometimes the disorder can just take a back seat to other things that are going on in your life! But, in most cases, without therapy the obsession or the obsessive cycle will return. 

A lot of people are actually triggered because they feel good! When you’re anxious and obsessing about something, and then have a period of time where you aren’t, many people with OCD will think “why doesn’t this make me anxious anymore? Does that mean it doesn’t bother me anymore? Does that mean I was faking OCD? Maybe I never really had it, maybe i’m a monster” etc. etc. and then the cycle continues. 

When I contacted an OCD advocate about receiving therapy, I had mentioned that I wasn’t in an obsessive state anymore. One of the first things she said to me was that OCD can come and go, and that just because I’m feeling okay right now, it doesn’t mean that I’m cured or don’t need help.

I’m glad that you’re able to talk about this with your therapist as well! They’ll be able to give you a better understanding about how this applies to you and your life. Although I will say that months of obsessing doesn’t sound like just a simple reaction. I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve been going through this, but I hope that you’re getting the help you deserve! If you have any more questions or if you ever want to chat, feel free to send me another ask or message me anytime! Much love to you

[em-jayy]

I suffer from excoriation disease. That means that my OCD causes me to try and get rid of any “imperfections” on my body. It started in high school and has only gotten worse from there. This is a mild example of what my face can sometimes look like. The worst part about my disease is that it takes over my whole body, there are scabs and scars all over in hidden places and lots of places that arent hidden at all like my face/chest/arms/legs. I try to be grateful for my disease because I think it has made me a stronger person. When I go out in public like this, which I have been doing a lot more this past few years, I try to let go of the shame I feel and the pressure society puts on women to always be beautiful and always have perfect skin and I just try to say to the world “hey, this is me. Take it or leave it. “ I know that when Im going through a really bad picking phase its always somehow related to my OCD and anxiety. I spend every day trying to figure out what it is that makes me do this, why I ruin my face when what I really want is for it to be smooth and perfect. Its like Im always doing the opposite of what I want to be doing. The other thing thats been difficult lately is feeling like its starting to “go away” and get better at different times and then I plunge back into a picking session and I feel so shitty that I let go of all the hard work I put into being “good” and not picking. Other than feeling like a stronger person, it also has made me more open. I feel less afraid to talk about it now that im being medicated and I know whats going on. It feels really refreshing to find help at every corner and to constantly be reminded that Im not alone. There are so many people who suffer from this illness and most also have trichotillomania which is equally as horrible and detrimental to your daily life. I count my blessings to think I have a loving boyfriend/family/support system that only wants to see me happy and healthy. I have full faith that someday, even If I never fully conquer this demon (because lets be honest there may never come a day where Im not in LOVE with a juicy whitehead) I will find a way to change my habits and turn them into positive habits that help me to have a healthy mind soul and body. I hope that this helps anyone who is going through somethig similar and it helps me a lot to be able to have a place where I can say these things.

[allonsymiddleearth]

Hi hi! I saw your post about "tiny, tiny, half a baby dose of hydrocodone". (This might be a stupid question), have you ever tried the likes of gabapentin/pregabalin or amitriptyline for your pain? What type of headaches do you get?

I have tried all of those things. 

(I think you were probably messaging me to try to suggest things that may help in case I didn’t know about them, and if so I do appreciate it! But I’m also going to go into why opiates work best for me. Because I think that’s just an important thing to put out there right now with this “opiate crisis” BS in order to reach as many people as possible and try to explain why, sometimes, opiates really are the best or only solution for a type of pain, and why taking them away can be dangerous. Also just in case you were messaging me in a ‘maybe I know more about your condition than you do’ way, which I’m going to assume you weren’t, but just in case, I’ll go into it, because it is the worst when people do that. I know my shit.) 

My headaches are cervicogenic, which means that they are a result of chronic cervical spine instability that I have that causes my spinal cord and brainstem to be compressed by my vertebrae that aren’t held in place by my connective tissue like they should be. Also every time disks slip they tend to cause inflammation in the whole area, causing pain and a host of other neurological deficits. I’ve already had two fusion surgeries for this, but my spine is still basically a jenga tower in an earthquake. Mostly this happens as a result of trauma such as a car accident, but for me it happened physical trauma free at about 20 due to my hereditable connective tissue disorder.

Amitriptyline is a disaster for me. I’m not sure what exactly goes on with my brain chemistry, but tricyclics and SSRIs completely screw up the way my entire body functions without having any positive effect on pain in the process. This is a common reaction to SSRIs and similar drugs with hEDS, though doctors aren’t exactly sure why it happens, and hEDS is the main umbrella under which almost all my comorbidities fall so it makes sense that I react this way.

Pregabalin gives me hypnagogic hallucinations, anxiety attacks, as well as uncontrollable OCD behaviors. No idea why it does that, but that’s out.

Gabapentin is actually fairly wonderful for my headaches, sometimes, and for the nerve pain I get from a potentially tethered cord, but does nothing for my dislocation pain, with is like 30% of what I use hydrocodone for. It does however come with the unfortunate side effect of completely making it so my body can’t regulate my over the top norepinephrine at all, and I go into hyperadrenergic states for a period of time after each dose, which just makes my chronic fatigue worse and it’s terrible. I took it after my last surgery when I had severe occipital neuralgia while recovering, and it did help my pain, but I wasn’t able to be on it long term because of the rest of the stuff that it did. 

The other disadvantage to all those meds is that you have to take them consistently, and deal with their side effects all the time. Whereas I can use opiates as a breakthrough med with one dose and no real side effects, and even if I took a low-doses all the time, the only real side effect I get is mild constipation. (And that I’m allergic to codeine, but I just don’t take that one.)

Also, having hEDS means that I just don’t metabolize painkillers (or many other kinds of drugs) like most people do, and they end up being far less effective than they should be. Even opiates don’t usually make my pain go away, they just make it manageable or get it to a level that I can ignore better. (NSAIDs might as well be sugar pills for most EDSers.) They’ve potentially isolated the gene that is responsible for this, but they aren’t yet sure. For years, even with trying hydrocodone, which helps a lot, I thought abled people were just exaggerating when they said painkillers actually make their pain go away because that has literally never happened for me. 

Side note, the ONLY time I’ve ever been on a painkiller that made my pain go away for real was when I was in the hospital on IV dilaudid, and I went from unable to speak from pain to not feeling it at all in about 30 minutes. It was like magic. But if I actually ask for IV dilaudid, especially with political Opioid Crisis stuff going on right now, no matter how legit the pain I’m actually in is and how many diagnoses I definitively have in my chart, probably even if I brought in visit notes chronicling my responses to the above meds and peer reviewed literature stating that EDS patients metabolize drugs differently, almost every doctor ever will just label me a drug seeker without a second thought and send me home.

[arimxri]

&&. is that ( lily james )?? no, it’s just ( ariel marina di savoia de bragança ). she is a ( princess ) of ( portugal ). she is ( 24 ) years old and her birthday is the ( 11 ) of ( july ) which makes her a ( cancer ).  she is ( effervescent & passionate ) and ( whimsical & emotional ) but, unfortunately, also ( impulsive & fickle ). those traits just make her a ( gryffindor ) and in scientific terms an ( isfp ). she is ( bisexual ) and the plaza’s ( mediator ).  her theme song is ( slipping through my fingers ) by ( abba ). her interests include ( rock climbing & camping ). she’s a ( catholic ) and a supporter of ( ps ). her quirk is ( pealing of her nail polish when nervous ) and favourite quote is ( i'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist. ) by ( fernando pessoa ) because ( it’s prime emo™ right there ). last but not least she ( does ) believe in true love.

her favourite Disney princess is actually Mulan- i knOW RUDE

was kidnapped and that lead to Portugal going batshit crazy - present-day Helen of Troy if you really think about it.

anyways - first and for most like this or hmu for plots. thanks.

CHILDHOOD AND BASIS

Ariel, Ari for short, is the 3rd child of the current King and Queen of Portugal 

She was always quite an agreeable and happy child - even if she was by no stretch of the word an angel and had her rebel moments, being the baby of the fam for so long (She was 13 when her younger brother was born) made it quite hard to shed that image. 

Especially when compared to her siblings #shade

She loves the fact she has such a big family both in Portugal and in Italy and spends as much time as she can with both. 

Meaning her life is all holidays - you’ve heard it here first

on her and Biel’s 18th birthday, the royal Portuguese fam got a matching tattoo (minus Nando) caUSE THEY’RE GOALS™ LIKE THAT - it’s two roses and it’s on their wrists

She loves the outdoors and does a few “extreme sports” 

especially loves rock climbing but also regularly does snowboard, parkour and deep diving and loves trying other crazy, adrenaline-inducing, things at least once.

THE KIDNAPPING

She was actually on her way to one of her little rock climbing expeditions, in October 2016, to a mountain in the north of Spain when she was kidnapped. 

She had security teams with her at first but this made moving slow and the whole thing less fun. So over the years, various turned into one bodyguard (WC!!).

The two were caught by surprise in the woods - the bodyguard was shot and left there and they took Ari

Sometimes she wonders what would have happened if her bodyguard hadn’t been able to call for backup that same day.

It took 4 days for her kidnappers to make demands to her family but by that point, she was already being looked for.

She was in captivity a total of 13 days. 

she was diagnosed with Traumatic Amnesia afterwards and doesn’t remember most of her captivity - other things diagnosed post-kidnapping was night terrors and sleepwalking and her OCD got a lot worst.

THE AFTERMATH

She started being followed almost daily by a psychologist - though she already was followed by one since early childhood for mild OCD.

The kidnapping seemed to put a big spotlight on her, both from the public and from her own family. Any time she even approached a window there would be flashes in her eyes hoping to catch a glimpse of the princess - and at home, she was babied more than ever.

She knew it was due to worry and didn’t resent them - but it shaped the way she healed. 

She tries to keep the happy front for as long as she can - not really as a lie or trying to hide her feelings - but in a “fake it till you make it” sort of way

Because of this she goes from super happy to crying in .2 seconds - the sadness only shows when she can no longer push it down. Fun times ya’ll

She travels a lot less since the kidnapping and is always with a big team of bodyguards independently of where she’s going now - a lot of her freedom gone

She knows it’s for the best and so tries not to complain but due to the nature of the situation there’s always going to be a divide in her life - a before and an after - and the big changes to her daily life don’t help.

RECENT HISTORY

She never really wanted to join the fam here simply because being home was at least familiar. It gave her a sense of security.

Plus with so many of her family around she knew it would go back to the overprotecting - her father at least still has to run a country instead of following her every move.

And the thought of being locked in an island with the only way out being by boat terrified her more than she would ever admit.

The move to Oslo - and missing her mom and siblings finally made her give it a try

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

Platonic:

Bodyguard !!

Best Friends 

Close Friends

Friends

Party Buddies

Family friends

Wingwoman/men

Acquaintances

Friends turn Enemies

Enemies because their countries are enemies

Romantic:

fwb - she isn’t one to sleep around so probs just one person she really vibes with but they both know dating would ruin them?? Maybe cause they’re to different. Maybe cause one or both doesn’t want to catch feelings??

from lovers to enemies in .2 seconds flat - they fight and makeup faster than one would think humanly possible. on again off again type of relationship.

exs on good terms

exes on bad terms

flirtaship

would give an arm and a leg for a pure poly relationship - past or present (could even be with one of the 3 not being here and make that a wc???) based on this song

[flirting-with-psychology]

Does it annoy you when people make their default of them kissing someone? Like profile pic? Maybe just a little bit

Are there any names you can think of that just go well together? Probably  but not off the top of my head

Do you enjoy museums? Depends on the type

Have you ever met anyone famous? Channing Tatum, Reese Witherspoon, Xavier Dolan

Describe the scariest dream you can remember? There was one in 4th grade where there was a big castle that got set on fire

Have you ever been to a mint where they make money? Yes

Do you ever get really, really hyper? Rarely

Are you left or right handed, or ambidextrous? I’m right handed

If ambidextrous, do you prefer writing with your right or left hand? N/A

What is your favourite subject at school? I think Science

Do you ever use Yahoo! Answers? For seriousness or for trolling? No

Have you ever stepped on a thumb tack? No

Do you have a username you use for everything? Or does it change each site? I have a few that I regularly use

Are you in Miami bitch? No. Lol bitch

How did you break the last bone you broke? I’ve never broken a bone

Have you ever used Nexopia? No

What has been the best year of school for you so far? Freshman or Senior year of college, or second grade

Do you have any disorders or disabilities? Mild OCD

Do you ever watch How To videos? Rarely, I find them annoying

Do you enjoy trolling? Only my friends usually

Have you ever been to an emergency room? If so, what for? I ran into a brick wall with my face as a kid

Which emoticon face do you use most often? Things like: :) :( :D :P :L D: :) , :/ , :(

Are you a musical sort of person? I mean, are you musically talented? Yes

How did you break the first phone you broke? I've never broken a phone

Did you have a tree house when you were a kid? If so, did you ever fall from it? No

Have you ever been on vacation to a snow field? No

When you go on vacation, what mode of transport do you usually use? Plane

What is the worst show, in your opinion on MTV? The best? I don’t watch MTV

Do you like Jason Derϋlo? Not especially

Are there any movies that just creep you out so much? A lot of horror movies

Have you ever had a close encounter with a shark? No

Do you have any hotties on your walls? Yes lol, althought they are from when I was like 12

Do you ever wish dinosaurs came back to life and there were cute and snuggly? No, have you seen Jurassic Park?

How many countries have you been to? USA, England, France, Italy, Singapore, Barbados (is that a separate country?)

How many states have you been to? In all the countries you’ve been to? Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming, there might be a couple more I don’t remember going to

What is a song you heard long before it became popular and everyone liked it? Idk, none really

Do you enjoy designing things? Anything? Yes, jewelry, costumes, film, random crafts

Do you know anyone who has gotten themselves into a serious accident? Not sure

Can you play anything on the violin? No but my mom can

Do you know what a raincheck at stores is? Yeah

Whose funeral was the last you went to? My grandpa’s I think

Who got married at the last funeral you went to? What, who the fuck would do that

What do you think of excessively long names? What about their shortenings? I feel a little bad for them having to write it out all the time

Do you ever get hay fever? I don’t think so

Do you know anyone with the last name Pilbeam? No

When you were little, did you have those magnet letters on your fridge? Maybe?

Have you seen the Techno Jeep video on YouTube? No

Does your house have a wood fire? My mom’s does

Do you know what a Pibgorn is? No

Can you learn the lyrics of a song by ear, or do you have to search them up? Usually if I play it a bunch

Do you like the name Amy? It’s ok

Have you ever got an x-ray? How about a brain scan? Yes x-rays, don’t think I’ve had a brain scan