#mikey stims and medicates with caffeine

[brightlotusmoon]

I would not wish any companion in the world but you - Chapter 87 - BrightLotusMoon, Sissystinger - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Bay Movies) [Archive of Our Own]

In which Rise Raphael and Bay Mikey have unexpected fun with surprise telekinesis!

Also, later:

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Churring and then chirping, like a cheetah, Mikey squeezed him. "Bro, it's okay. Just because your idea didn't come through the way you hoped doesn't mean you have to be sorry. It's not a failure, it's just a setback." He blinked. "I should take my own advice."

“You should. It’s good advice.” Raphael rumbled in response.

-

[omega-al]

The Last Rebellion - Could you let them die?

Continued from  http://polychromaticat-blog.tumblr.com/post/161812536246/the-last-rebellion-first-hit-of-death As the clouds parted I realized I was walking beside Meryl, both of us tied together at the wrist and flanked by a few human forms. Everything was blurry and I couldn’t make out my surroundings. I was overwhelmed with nothingness. I didn’t care where we were going, I didn’t care if I lived or died, I didn’t care, that Paris was dead. I wasn’t happy or sad. I just existed. Time passed, or maybe it didn’t, it didn’t matter. Eventually we stopped and were brought into a small room and sat on the floor. They left us there to ride out our trip, only occasionally peeking in to laugh at us or take selfies with ancient cell phones. I think the room was dark, windowless, but I didn’t care enough to look around for a description, let alone a way out.

I think maybe a few hours went by like this, then I felt a good hard slap across my face followed by a needle in my neck, ejack-cafevee, a stimulant that brought me immediately out of my downward spiral into reality; a feeling that was much like crashing your spaceship into the sun, a terrifying burning sensation all over your body and an all-consuming fear of god, but then it was over and in front of me stood Jamaica Orleans, a classmate and friend from third year. They stood in front of me outlined in white light, hands on their hips, posed judgmentally above me.

“You with it Bronx? I don’t want to have to smack you around again.” they had a smirk on their face that old me otherwise.

I hadn’t seen Jamaica in almost seven years. They used to be my lab partner in Health Sciences. Well, partner is a bit unfair, they were more my tutor than partner. They were always be giving me notes and helping me study, they didn’t need me, they were the brightest student in our class. People said, they were going places, their ideas would revolutionize the health sciences. I remember in second year they won an award for bringing a dead kitten back to life, it had been dead for three weeks. When it reanimated, it tried to kill and consume the judges and had to be shot, but the concept was valid and had some serious potential.

“Oh fuck, Jamaica! What the hell are you doing here?” They reached out a hand, helping me to my feet. I saw that Meryl was still out of it, they had wisely chosen to speak to me alone, never mind that the two of us together might pose a threat to them, I noticed there were also no guards, they had been told to wait outside. This caffeine shot was making my mind jacked up and i was registering everything I had missed before all at once. The room was windowless, a dark grey uniform paint on the thick corrugated metal walls, a shipping container, with a pole through the middle to tie prisoners to.

“What are you, doing here? I have been here a long time Bronx, you are the one that doesn’t belong here.” No matter what our relationship was before, it didn’t matter down here. That was a long time ago and clearly, a lot had happened since then.

“I, didn’t know you, or anyone was down here, I knew about the MMG, but I thought maybe we’d pass unnoticed, I mean, what the fuck are you doing down here?” I was babbling, but I didn’t know if they would trust anything I’d say and I certainly didn’t know how dangerous of a situation I had found myself in. “What are you, of all people, doing down here Jamaica?”

“That’s a long story Bronx, come with me.”

“What about Meryl? I can’t leave him, surely you understand that.”

“I will have one of my men give him a stim and talk him through his come down, he will be safe I assure you.”

I followed them out into a small court yard where there were several buildings of different sizes and people milling about everywhere. There were children playing under trees. How could there be trees down here? There’s no sun, no earth?  I was dumbfounded and it showed on my face.

“I see you like my trees, I figured out a way to cross a type of spore that has shallow roots with a quick growing version of a spruce, the result of which were these trees. They only live for a few short years but they filter our dank used air, and turn it into oxygen. It’s not a total success, the trees have a hell of a pollen season, but I fashioned some masks that protect the lungs of the more vulnerable children.” The trees smelled like mushrooms and pine needles.

When we passed the group of children playing under them I noted some were seriously malformed and mutated, some had open sores and bandages badly in need of changing. I did my best to hide my repulsion but it didn’t go unnoticed. Jamaica stopped and called for one of the children to come over and join us, a little boy with four arms.

“Bronx, this is Mikey.” They lifted the small child onto their shoulders and continued walking. “Mikey’s parents were mutants too. They were the reason I came down here.” They paused as if remembering all the choices that led them to this life. There was so much sadness in their eyes, like they had seen deaths unlike any others, and it haunted them.

“Where are they now?” I wanted to know more, but I knew this was going to be painful for them.

“They’re dead Bronx, I couldn’t save them.” there was a sharp hollowness to their tone.

“Hey hey now, I didn’t kill them.” I was just trying to remind them I wasn’t the enemy... yet.

“You remember the last time we spoke?”

“Yeah sure, you were excited about getting to work with your mentor on a public outreach project… oh wait, it was this wasn’t it? It was these people you were trying to help?”

“We were gonna try to cure them. You see, decades of lack of medical access and limited breeding options made for some pretty interesting subjects for genetic research.  Ha, subjects, listen to me slipping into scientist and speaking about them like they aren’t human beings. It was so easy back then, to separate us, from them, they were like fucking monkeys in our project, we didn’t give them a choice, we came in with our tech and higher purpose and devotion to ‘saving’ them, and didn’t ask if they wanted it, we knew better. We were gonna be famous, we were gonna bring them back into society. We thought we were fucking gods.”

“What happened?” I didn’t need to say anything, but I wanted to show them I was still here, that I cared about these people, or at least, I wanted to.

“We failed is what happened. They rejected our help, and when they started dying ANN refused to intervene. They cancelled the project, recalled my professor, left me here to clean up the mess we made. They called it a ‘soft exit’, told us it was the only way to preserve their way of life. But the reality was they would let the sick die, that our unfinished projects like Mikey here,” they set the boy on the ground and knelt in front of him, tousling his hair,  “were to be exterminated.” They smiled at him, swatting him off to go play again with the other children. Then they stood up and looked me in the eye. “They wanted me to kill him, he was two years old, what was I supposed to do? Kill a baby? For what? Their high and fucking mighty ethics? He had as much right to live as anyone here. Yeah it’s fine to experiment on them, but the moment you start to feel some sort of responsibility to them, you’re wrong, playing god, fucking up their way of life. But let me tell you something, they knew we weren’t wanted here when they sent us down to experiment on them. They were happy to let us mess with their genetics looking for cures to diseases that didn’t exist yet and ways to improve the human body, but when things don’t go as expected, when human nature wants something different, when you create something you shouldn’t, there are people, real live human-beings that pay the price. We owed it to them to let them live, and I owed it to them to make their lives better for what I did to them.” ====

[brightlotusmoon]

(although, I've been taking my caffeine in pill form more often)

[brightlotusmoon]

Me, remembering that in the newest chapter of the RP fic I made all the Bay Turtles Autistic and or ADHD:

I must share this on Tumblr!

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"We're not even certain of reptile neurology regardless," Donnie smiled. "I can't imagine they have migraines for example. We only very recently realized what neurodevelopmental phenomena we all have. Mike with ADHD and Autism, Leo and I autistic, Raph potentially ADHD and an anxiety disorder that may or may not be intermittent explosive disorder."

Raph narrowed his eyes. "It's not that bad."

Don gave him a quiet and level look. "I only interpret data, admittedly with some bias."

Raph just lifted one eyebrow.

-

(Bay Raph's ADHD might be confirmed later anyway as more of a large cluster of related processing disorders depending on where I want to go)

[brightlotusmoon]

In working on my Bayverse Turtles fic and the fics with @remmushound I am thinking about how the boys have near perfect immune systems and strong healing factors with naturally long telomeres, ie slowed aging. So they can still get sick, injured, and disabled in ways they can't fully heal from.

Like migraines, chronic nerve pain, tendonitis, back pain, but it's like a slow healing cycle.

I'm basing it off my husband's healing factor, times eleven. Our favorite inside joke is him saying "The difference between you and me is that I heal" and me replying "Yes, fuck you" with a grin and a kiss and me butting my head heavily against his 58-inch chest like it's a wall because his abs are rocks and he has like no waist or butt so his thirteenth rib and his hipbone are an inch apart and it's easy to treat him like a wall. He was also splashed with boiling water as a teenager so most of his torso is scar tissue that he doesn't really feel. When he's teaching me the IP Man style martial arts he was trained in, it's fascinating to watch a six foot barrel chested guy do roundhouse kicks in silence, with an arthritic spine, a hip that he'll dislocate for fun, and a near impossible flexibility for his age that flows like water over stone. I think the qigong meditation plus cannabis has worked for his ADHD and spine pain better than anything because he's managed to spiritually manipulate his own neuroplasticity over thirty years. He's bizarrely chill and like a socialist anarchist. He also meets the seven signs of the antichrist because he was born in a city called Bethlehem in a hospital called Sinai, no labor pains, stillborn for four minutes, Jewish, light eyes, his name referring to first beloved son of his father, Tribe of David, supposed supernatural powers, talks a lot about people helping people and keeps being put in Facebook jail for poking at conversatives and liberals about concentrating taxes and power on communities and welfare and healthcare but saying it in a way that "sounds libertarian" and being ignored or mocked. Oh shit that's a huge tangent, whoops.

Plus there's a reason I say husband's like the embodiment of all four turtles. We have katanas and accidental bo and he's still teaching me Cane Fu.

2) So for my portrayals of Psionic Mikey with painful side effects, I'm imagining how muscles and nerves are constantly damaging and repairing and growing scar tissue because I've seen it with husband.

Mikey being so completely physical and athletic would influence the kinetic psionics like biokinesis, the way his chi would flex and expand.

His internal telekinesis would probably wind up creating new pathways, dendrite growth, neurochemical receptors similar to opioid and endocannabinoid.

Hell, I plan on honoring Winnychan's unfinished fic where Mikey goes to the Ninja Tribunal to complete his tests and becomes Usagi Yojimbo's student, who guides him. In a scene I've never forgotten, Mikey physically manifested his chi as green plant matter, which he ground into a healing paste, because he remembered Splinter grinding herbs for healing. There was the idea that Mikey's chi manifestation was green, Life Energy, and it was as physical and tactile and touched starved as Mikey himself.

I'm glad I complimented Winny on that before she passed.

When I was writing the 2012 Psionics I made him essentially Jean Grey but I probably could still refine how the powers actually work.

Since the late 2000s, I've imagined Psionic Mikey being able to heal himself and others but at a cost.

In every iteration, he is friendly, boisterous, and cheerful, but a lot of fan writers starting in the late 2000s started thinking that Mikey doesn't like to contemplate life, that he's completely airheaded, that his head is always empty. But he's got so many thoughts that it's like static, like a radio or television changing channels, and it bursts out of him with physical force. So why not manifest as telekinetic force...

In this essay I

[brightlotusmoon]

Tired.

Need Mikey cuddles.

Can someone write a headcanon imagine fic thing about that? Bayverse preferred, other versions secondary? Long day, chronic pain, waiting for drug treatments to kick in. Mikey gets it. He's damaged himself via martial arts and extracurricular gymnastics and his ADHD forces twitches and tics and raw stims.

I forget who to tag.

@tmntspidergirl @the-second-circle-of-shell @all-that-tmnt-jazz @sylvain-writes @firebirdscratches

He's tired. His brothers don't know. He's an illusion. They don't see his dissociation almost into the astral plane and the only one who knows is Reader/Me and maybe Splinter.

So Mikey understands falling to the couch and having a lil shutdown.

We watch 'Wonder Woman' and eat chocolate. Mikey makes cheesesteaks on garlic bread. The popcorn actually provides serotonin, literally. Popcorn and corn nuts.

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....It's hard to think.

[brightlotusmoon]

Hmmm. I might take a "post vaccine nap" but I really want to continue writing ANGST in the RP with @remmushound whom I'm encouraging to choose how ANGSTy it gets and then I build off that.

We're really good RP partners.

[brightlotusmoon]

Chewable Phoenix Pendant — Stimtastic

My OC for my Bayverse TMNT fic owns this chewelry pendant and I plan on her ordering one for Michelangelo, plus one of the chewable bracelets, for when he has ideations. And now I want to hear from the fandom Autistics and ADHDers and Mikey lovers about your choice of stim jewelry and toys for various versions of Mikey. And of course for Raph and Leo.

[brightlotusmoon]

Multisensory Temporal Function and EEG Complexity in Patients with Epilepsy and Psychogenic Nonepileptic Events

And here I go down the research rabbit hole again; much obliged, ADHD and Autism. Hyperfixations within in a special interest that was already major will probably pop up in my creative writing. Again.

Lulz. When I first loaded my rebooted fic "Cold Fire Rising" on Fanfiction dot net, the reviews that said "I had to look up a lot of the medical terminology but I'm glad I learned things" became my favorite.

[brightlotusmoon]

In the RP with @remmushound in the Rise world, the three Bay boys met with Hypno and Warren and I accidentally turned Bay Leo into a sarcastic dork king whose malaphors of popular memes, ie Tumblr, both impress and wound his bros.

He's still a jerk but I'm softening him up a bit.

[brightlotusmoon]

Inspired by a chat with @inkyturtle, my writerbrain has once again had ideas without me.

Moar B-Team headcanon! It’s been a while. Hallo, weird o'clock writerbrain. Donnie’s great with hard sciences, Mikey’s perfect with soft sciences. The family engineer and the family therapist have weekly chat sessions in the lab over coffee, which is Mikey’s ADHD medicine. Mikey admits that he doesn’t really want to be looked up to or have his talents acknowledged as extraordinary beyond his brothers, because that would mean he couldn’t fail. In his mind he would forever need to keep up that perfect twice exceptional mentality and it would just make everything come crashing down. So he deliberately holds back and screws up and allows his ADHD-I to disrupt all hopes of focusing enough, except for the stuff he hyperfocuses on, seeing as that can’t be helped, and he just happened to hyperfocus on chemistry, psychology, making up his own katas, and wearing a lifelong mask of Keep Laughing While The World Burns, because at first he really just wanted to spread joy and love everywhere, but now it feels like hard work and smiling is hard sometimes and oh right that was how the first depressive episode happened. Donnie knows that Mikey’s emotional intelligence and interpersonal intelligence are so far off the charts they’re up in space but he also knows Mikey rarely takes himself seriously and would rather be loved for who he is rather than the things he could be if he only focused. Donnie has them both hooked up to brain monitoring helmets and starts taking notes and he starts trying to figure out how to do some sort of technical mind merge so he can get inside Mikey’s head and maybe transfer knowledge back and forth. Joke’s on him, Mikey’s already had that idea and has been drawing up crude blueprints that include pictures of dragons. Donnie starts to wonder what percentage of his inventions were in fact based on Mikey’s bizarre ideas for fun toys from his powerful imagination that can essentially create and destroy universes.

(I think I brought this up in one of the fics already, but I kind of want to make either a CFR Mind Games chapter or another Mikey The Lifegiver fic for Earth And Oxygen where this gets driven home.)

[brightlotusmoon]

The fandom: Hey I have this new headcanon that 2003 Donnie is autistic because he reminds me of my autistic sibling!

Me, An Actual Autistic, having written a couple of dozen fanfics featuring 2003 and 2012 and 2016 Autistic Donatello plus Autistic ADHD Michelangelo for the last few years:

Hmm, mmmhmm, you don't say, how fascinating, yes. By the way, not all of us are into science, many of us love art and comics, and both Donnie and Mikey have similar stims. In my headcanons Mikey does in fact self medicate with caffeine like I do.

[brightlotusmoon]

TMNT Headcanon Fanfiction: “Beyond My Words”

 One might think that Mikey, as headstrong and brash as he is, might turn to Raph to release some steam. Maybe some physical stuff, skateboarding or running out to beat up muggers, pranking Raph. Mikey actually goes to Donnie. Sometimes Mikey screws up his words, his ability to turn thoughts to language, and of course shiny things will distract him, leading to Donnie snapping at him until Mikey is able to articulate his thoughts. Emotionally, Mikey has a hard time actually opening up about the really deep hurts. He wants to be outgoing, happy, silly, and carefree as much as possible. When he gets frustrated and angry, it never lasts long. A quick fiery blast and then he’s exhausted. But there are times when the darker emotions keep building up, festering, and he doesn’t want to be told that he’s okay, that he just needs to meditate or punch a training dummy. Sometimes Mike wants to sink himself into logic and psychology and science. Donnie realized this a while ago and he knows how to read those very particular signs when his little brother approaches him.  Donnie will close and lock the lab doors. He will set aside his projects. He will make hot cocoa. He will play soothing music. He will sit Mikey down and they will drink their chocolate and sit in comfortable silence. Mikey will suddenly sigh and fidget with his empty mug, the sign that he is ready to talk. Donnie will set aside the mugs to refill. And Mikey will talk. Mikey will open up about his fears, his worries, his insecurities. He will talk about how inefficient he feels, that he isn’t sufficient enough, that his casual, carefree, worry-free approach will hurt them all in battle, even as he knows he’s a powerful, fluid fighter. He cannot control what his brain does. He cannot control saying inappropriate things, mispronounced words, jokes that he didn’t mean as jokes; he feels he constantly must grab that part of him and exhaust himself with maintenance. He’s been feeling tired lately. He’s losing interest in things he loves. Ice Cream Kitty is worried, he says. He doesn’t understand why. He feels fine. Just tired. And his head hurts a lot. His muscles ache all the time. His chest hurts like it’s hard to breathe, like his stomach is cold. Sometimes he loses his appetite. Sometimes he cannot bring himself to smile, and he must fake it. Sometimes he forgets how to laugh. Sometimes he wants to cry but feels hollow and empty. And sometimes all he can do is cry, in private, in his room, and dark tunnels away from the lair. Sometimes he is too tired to train. Mostly, he worries that he is feeling dark and cold. Donatello immediately runs all sorts of tests, laptop open to various scholarly sites. He finally settles on Major Depression with anxiety, comorbid to ADHD. He knows they cannot get medication and he’s not sure how vital it is. He looks up more holistic medicines. There are teas he can brew that can help boost neurotransmitters and hormones, and talk therapy has proven effective. He will call April and ask her to bring down psychology books. As he is talking, excitedly, hands moving, mind whirring, Donnie hardly notices that the wan smile on Mikey’s face has gotten wider, and the dullness in Mikey’s eyes has brightened, and Mikey’s fidgeting has turned to stimming. And when he pauses for breath, his arms are full of little brother, who buries his face in Donnie’s neck and thanks him, thanks him, and Donnie tears up when he realizes that Mikey is sobbing openly, his whole body shaking. “I didn’t know what it was,” Mikey gasps, “I didn’t know what to do, I thought I was sick, I thought I was losing my mind.” “No, no, little brother,” Donnie murmurs, “You’re not losing your mind. You’re sick, yes, but it’s your brain chemistry, and it can be managed, you can heal in time. I will help you, and April will help, and when you’re ready we’ll tell Leo and Raph. We’ll all help you. It will be really hard for a while, Mikey, but we’re here for you. We love you. I love you so much, Mikey, I adore you.” After more talking, it turns out that Mikey’s symptoms have been going on for more than three months, that’s how well he was able to hide. Donnie gets a little worried at how deep the shadows might have burrowed into his brother’s sunshine heart. But Mikey came to him early enough to catch the disorder before anything drastic happened. Mikey does admit to some very recent thoughts of harming himself. He tells Donnie of injuries he’d taken in battle that he never mentioned, decided that the pain made him feel better. Donnie warns him of the dangers and begs him to promise to bring every hurt to the lab, no matter how minor. Mikey makes a tiny joke about Raph freaking out and Leo becoming a mother hen, and Donnie is just relieved to hear Mikey laugh. They drink more cocoa. Donnie suggests mixing coffee and chocolate, as caffeine will help ADHD and chemicals in chocolate will help mood disorders. He’s already discovered some plants from India and Japan and China that they can brew to help increase dopamine and serotonin. He makes a list of things to discuss with April, and maybe even her father. He tells Mikey that depression is a powerful illness in the brain, and it can’t be cured but it can be managed, that episodes can heal with help, and Mikey is all sharp eyes and sharp questions and a sharp smile, bright lamplight summer blue irises shimmering with a desire to learn more, to know more, to know as much as he can handle at once.  Inside himself, deep inside, Donnie wants to cry out in happiness and dance on the moons of Jupiter for this chance to share such science with his dear baby brother. They keep talking and Mikey keeps listening. Like an ecstatic child and also like an attentive student in a lecture hall. The look on Mikey’s face tells a tale of euphoria and wonder, and Donnie keeps talking until he realizes he is teaching himself as well. The hours have passed. Mikey has fallen asleep beside him. Donnie feels his heart swell to the size of the universe. Here is his very own sun, and he is sworn to make sure that light and warmth never fade. Carefully, he picks up Mikey and carries him to his own bedroom, almost as cluttered as Mikey’s, but with a wider bed and a small ionic air purifier and a pink noise generator. It might ease Mikey’s nearly chronic nightmares. They will get to cuddle. Mikey might sleep in peace. Donnie might actually be able to really sleep. As he places his little brother in his bed, handling him like porcelain, Mikey stirs and sighs. Donnie slips under the covers and draws Mikey’s head to his shoulder, holding him close. In his rapidly sinking sleep, Mikey murmurs, “I love you Donnie, you’re my brain hero.” Donnie kisses Mikey’s forehead and whispers, “I love you, Mikey, you’re my heart hero.”