#me writing a whole essay after being so garbled earlier is Something

[neuroticboyfriend]

What are some little things that are slightly cool about a disability you have?

Hm.. I don't know if you'd call it cool (I would), but my experience with schizophrenia has given me a perspective on reality that sane people don't often have. TW for unreality? I think I've made a post about it a long time ago, but there isn't one singular reality that we all experience. Yeah, there's the collective existence of everything, but as human beings, we can only experience well.. what we experience. We're not omniscient.

This is to say, everyone has their own reality, and the closest thing we get to Reality (singular) is interacting with each other and the world around us. We share our thoughts, feelings, memories. We experience life at the same time, in the same place, and form similar yet different views on the existence of all of that. So, no one is ever really out of touch with reality... everything someone does, says, believes, makes sense within the context of their life - what they've been through, what they've been taught, what they feel and think.

The problem comes when we use our lives - our realities - to harm others. To remove their agency, invalidate their existence. That's something a lot of psychotic people go through. Even when our beliefs and experiences harm no one - not even ourselves - we're forced to change. And when we do experience disorder, we're not given an option to really cope and experience fulfillment as a psychotic person. We're just made to be sane.

I kind of miss being psychotic. It was harmless, when I was younger. Believing I was a deity or cat person or whatever, it made life more colorful. More interesting. The most distressing thing I dealt with was thinking there were microscopic cameras in my walls... and I feel like that could have been coped with. Unfortunately, once my psychosis became severe and life threatening (due to the trauma of antiplurality and psychiatric abuse) the safest option was to just get me on meds to make me sane.

So yeah. Reality is weird and I think psychotics are cool. Also fuck sanists and psychiatry.

#me writing a whole essay after being so garbled earlier is Something #sorry for the essay btw #im passionate about this #asks #yaybox #anon #schizophrenia #psychiatric abuse #psychotic #actually psychotic #delusions #actually delusional #delusion tw #psychosis tw #psychosis #schizoaffective #schizospec #neurodivergency #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #antipsychiatry #antipsych #abuse tw #trauma #trauma survivor #ableism #sanism #unreality tw #unreality #??

[swan-archive]

i understand towel-throwing; i shall join you. headcannon: shifter!Alex is mostly human around his Betsey, but sometimes - when he needs to be - he's very soft.

“You do realize, of course, that there’s a very real chance you’ve married a demon.”

“Well, now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“I’m not! I could be an agent of the devil, using his dark powers to bewitch you into Satan’s infernal service, and you’d never even—oof! All right, all right, I yield!”

“That so?”

“…I yield to the fair demonslayer, she who vanquishes the legions of hell with the might of her arm—”

Eliza clouts him again with the pillow. He shrieks.

“First off,” says Eliza, pulling the pillow off Alexander’s face and striving to ignore his smirk, and the odd little stubby spines coming in along the edges of his jaw. “I think I’d’ve noticed you bursting into flames upon uttering a word of prayer. Second, I’ve seen you walk into a church. No flames there either. Unless you’re very good at hiding it.”

“It would have to be a miraculous recovery indeed,” Alexander says, scratching at his face. “Which, I think, defeats the whole point of witchcraft. Depending on your interpretation of what constitutes a miracle, of course. They say the devil looks after his own, but to what extent…” 

“I’m not going to debate theology with you on my honeymoon.”

“Our honeymoon.” 

“Our honeymoon,” Eliza concedes. “And you’re getting sidetracked. I wasn’t done.”

“Oh, no? Please summarize for me. Point the first, I can speak a prayer in sincerity without going all to ash and brimstone. Point the second, I can cross the threshold of a church without experiencing same. And third…?”

“Point the third,” says Eliza, “The whole idea is absurd anyway because I know you’re not a demon. You wouldn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t try to drag my soul to hell. I trust you. That’s that.”

“Wha—that’s not an argument at all,” Alexander protests, but there’s relief in his eyes, an ease to his smile that wasn’t there before, and the little spines on his face are blooming into downy feathers. Eliza reaches out to touch and Alex pounces, tumbles her laughing onto the bed, and shrugs a pair of great dove-wings from his shoulders to enfold her. White feathers all around her, white feathers under her lips where she kisses him.

Alexander drinks her in, his eyes very dark against the pale feathers, and maybe Eliza’s sure he’s not a demon, but she can’t say with as much certainty that she hasn’t caught herself a very, very strange angel.

–

Alexander loves his children very much, but he has to admit: they can get quite loud. Alarmingly loud, even when he has explained to the three of them that Papa is working on some extremely important essays that he needs everyone to read, and has deadlines coming up, and it looks like he is about to lose a collaborator, and, and, and—

He tried going without ears for a bit, but the dead silence made it even harder to concentrate, and what if something actually happened to one of them? He’d have no idea, and that thought rattles his concentration even more. Better just to grit his teeth and tough it out. Although he’s regretting that decision now, as the racket of a crying child approaches his office door at a speed suggesting the child in question is being carried by its mother.

“Door’s open,” he calls, at Eliza’s first knock, and she shoves her way in, bearing a red-faced, mid-tantrum Angie.

“She wants her papa,” Eliza says, by way of explanation.

“And did you tell her that Papa is busy right now and can’t play?”

“You know, this may come as a surprise to you, but factual arguments don’t always fly so well with a three-year-old—what’s that, sweetheart?” Angie hiccups several times before sobbing out something indistinct. “Ah. She wants you to do the thing, dear.”

“Do the—I am working.”

Angie shrieks like she’s having her foot sawn off. Eliza looks ever so faintly ruffled. “Alexander. Please. Just do it.”

“I—oh, fine, all right, one second.” Alex hurriedly unbuttons his waistcoat and begins picking at his cravat as Eliza bounces Angie in a vain attempt to calm her.

“Alex…”

“I know, I know, I know.” Alex yanks his shirt over his head, tosses it onto the floor, and then his arms snake out to snatch Angie out of Eliza’s grasp. “Hi, sweetheart,” he coos at her, “hi, baby, look at papa, look at me—that’s it, now, are you ready, can you count with me? One, two, and—”

He wrinkles his nose at her, crosses his eyes, and with a poof is suddenly covered in a thick shaggy coat like a sheepdog. Angie falls silent mid-sob, her eyes still very wide and wet, but her lips fighting back a smile.

“Where’s my girl? Where’s my little girl?” Alex growls from behind his curtain of fur. He nuzzles at Angie’s tummy, and Angie can’t help it then, she giggles and squirms in his arms.

“I’m here, Papa, I’m here, you’re tickling.”

“Have you been giving your Mama trouble? Is that what you’ve—I’ll tickle you to pieces, that’s what naughty little girls get! Hold still!” A third arm, covered in the same thick fur as the rest of him, sprouts from his side. He’s barely even touched her with it before she bursts into peals of laughter, her earlier fit all but forgotten.

“If I’d known it would be this easy, I would have brought her up here half an hour ago,” says Eliza with a smirk. Alex concentrates until the fur on his face has shrunk back into a velvety fuzz short enough for him to see past, then frowns at her.

“Yes, well, thank you for not interrupting,” he says a bit crossly. Angie is draping his fur over her head to make herself a fluffy wig. “I wasn’t joking when I said I was busy.”

“Did I say you were? It’s just easier to manage the children when there are two of us around, that’s all.”

“I’m around! I’m right here.”

“Sure. Here, upstairs, in your office, with the door closed, with strict instructions that you’re not to be disturbed…”

“That’s unfair, and you know it. Jay’s ill, Eliza, and James’ health isn’t the best, and if we’re to stick to our schedule—well, someone has to put the work in.”

“Surely you can take one evening to have dinner with your family,” she shoots back. “The children are going to forget what their papa looks like.”

“I can look like whatever they—” He stops, mentally checks himself. You’re being unreasonable, Alexander. These are your children. Is this project really so important that you can justify shutting yourself away from them?

Well, technically... His lawyer’s brain calls up a list of explanations immediately, but Alex clamps down on that voice for the time being. Sighs. The breath ruffles his whiskers, and when did he sprout those? “No, you’re right, I—one hour. I can spare an hour. But then I really have to get back to this.”

“Two hours, and I’ll proofread whatever’s going to the presses next. I’ve seen the kind of nonsense you put out when you’re not getting enough rest, and god knows you haven’t been getting enough lately.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mrs. Hamilton.” Alex hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her into a hug. “Next time, I’ll have to enlist you to write an installment of—ow, Angie, ow, that hurts Papa.”

“Don’t tug on it, sweetie, how would you like it if someone pulled your hair that hard?” says Eliza, peeling Angie’s fingers off the hank of fur she’s been yanking at. “Tell you what, why don’t you take your papa downstairs? I’m sure your brothers could use a good visit from the tickle monster.”

–

“Oh, Betsey, I came as soon as I could,” says Alexander, and the part of Eliza’s brain that’s still working coughs up the barest ounce of concern that that doesn’t seem to have fixed anything. How she’d longed for him, how she’d cried out for him, and it had hurt and she’d been so scared and so lonely and he hadn’t been there and he hadn’t been there and he hadn’t been there. Day after cold empty day, dragging her feet, reassuring the family with what strength she could gather that she was well, that she’d be fine before they knew it, telling herself just wait until Alexander gets home, once you’re together again it’ll all be right.

He’s home. It’s not all right.

He’s still speaking, but the words sound garbled and flat as all the other reassurances she’s heard lately. Hollow. Emptied out, just like her. Suddenly the sight of him is more than she can bear right now, his apologies a sick reminder of what they’ve lost. She turns her face away from him, closes her eyes. Can barely feel it when he lets go of her hand and steps back from the bed.

A rustling of fabric falling to the ground, a scritching noise against the bedsheets. “Betsey,” Alexander says, very quiet and very close to her ear.

Eliza rolls over. Blinks at him, perched on the pillow next to her head, shrunk down from guilt and sorrow to a tiny weaselly creature with a flat face somewhere between human and owl. She could almost laugh at what a sight he makes, if she remembered how to laugh.

“I’m so s—I won’t talk. I’m sorry. I won’t talk if you don’t want to hear it,” says Alexander, wringing several pairs of little paws. “I know it can’t—there aren’t words—but if I could just stay here with you. Please.”

Eliza reaches over and Alexander tenses, as though he’s expecting her to swat him off the bed. She rests her thumb between Alexander’s first set of shoulders, gentle gentle, feels for the bird-fast humming of his fierce heart. Strokes along the grain of the mingled feathers and fur, soft as a baby’s skin.

She still can’t find the words, but Alexander, bless him, understands, and he scurries down the length of her arm and up over her shoulder to curl himself into a ball just over her own heart. So small she can barely feel the weight of him, wouldn’t know he was there but for the delicate pricking of his claws. She cups her hands around him. It’s all show, of course, but it lightens her heart just a little to have something small and fragile to hold close, to protect.

“I should have been here,” Alexander whispers against her palm. And yes, yes, he should have, but it’s too late for that now, and what real difference would it have made? He’s no doctor, and for all his powers there are miracles even he can’t work.

They still would have lost the baby.

Eliza lets her eyes fall shut. Drifts. Distantly, she feels Alexander’s body trembling between her hands, the faintest trace of wetness on her skin from his tears.

He’s here now. That will have to be enough.

#the everqueen #swan talks #shapeshifter au #hamilton for ts #'swan the point of these is that they're supposed to be short and informal' sorry what i couldn't hear you over the sound of me #IGNORING THAT AND DOING SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY #see the first one is funny because alexander hamilton..................is a Demon #i bet that does give him a lot of pause when he's first turned #like oh my god; am i literally a damned soul now on top of everything else?? #(burr's like 'no; stop being dramatic and stop doing that with your face') #anyway i love.............................................mood whiplash.