Psyche, the most entertaining (for a given definition) of Pieridae’s siblings, is a shapeshifter with the power to make people really suggestible, which would be unethical but the only thing they use it for is going “five more minutes” whenever anyone tries to leave a party. And getting people to do shots.

Maybe it’s still a little unethical.

It’s their birthday today :)

she's my butterfly my psyche and my star

grabbing you by the shoulders. shaved ice, train, green heart for dec and psyche

🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it?

dec: an assortment of things that they keep tucked close at the bottom of their ender chest storage (though no surviving photographs, which he's... normal about.) two bottles of magical pollen from the garden, a couple battered books he's had since he was a kid, the same sewing kit his pa passed onto him from his grandma. they're the last pieces of home that dec can have for... the foreseeable future, so far as he knows, and if he somehow lost them he'd be inconsolable for days and then silently aching for... a long while after

psyche: the only thing they've brought from their childhood is themself and even that's warped beyond recognition. they feel very strongly that the person from their childhood is dead; they wouldn't have even known what to keep

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

dec: "if i simply throw myself onto the tracks first i will divert the tram before it can hit any of the people and it will be fine"

psyche: i think it genuinely depends on whether they're with the strawhats or the kidd pirates but. before that point for them it's probably just to walk away. not their circus not their People Who Are About To Die To A Tram

💚 GREEN HEART - what things make your oc feel comforted? hugs, kisses, food?

dec: he's comforted by a lot of things! most of them revolve around having company, though. physical contact (as much as humanly possible and then some, preferably) + call & response + Being Held, specifically. besides company- homecooked meals, warm lights, being able to go outside, etc. also also: will purr so loud at being pet kitty-style

psyche: normal things, like being in the same room as people they care for, heavy blankets/fur, vivisection, watching their husbands make out, and checking the pulses of their dolls. things that remind them of perona and/or just perona herself, also. they're besties

The musical episode.

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kabru as a psych student who KNOWS about ethics guidelines and KNOWS he's not qualified to make diagnostic statements and therefore spends every moment with laios grinding his teeth to dust because HOW DOES THIS MAN THINK HE'S NEUROTYPICAL!??!?!?

Eros and Psyche, Gustav Vigeland (1908) Dirty Dancing, Emile Ardolino (1987)

The best Sherlock Holmes adaptations are the ones that recognize that Watson needs to be kind of a weird little guy as well

Eros and Psyche by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1889.

im so late to this

sry i dont know what 2 draw anymore T_T . elendira portrait #999

So, Peer Respites are a not-very-well-known alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. They are 100% voluntary and staffed by peers, AKA individuals with lived experience of mental illness/emotional distress/what-have-you. Generally, they are a homelike environment where you can come and go as you please, and there is lots of voluntary programming like groups, art, yoga, etc. You can bring your own food or cook meals together with staff and other residents. Stays are usually anywhere from five days to two weeks, depending on the respite house and also your own wants and needs. There are no restraints, strip searches, or seclusion.

They're also on the rise!! I know this because I've spent all day today compiling data on peer respites in the US so I could create this fun graph for ya'll.

In the past ten years, at least 38 new peer respites have opened in the US. The data for 2023 is incomplete, but at least one has already opened, and another is scheduled for a soft opening later this year.

Some things about the data:

I did not include peer respites which were permanently closed (2) or could not find an opening date for (1)

I used the National Empowerment Center's Directory of Peer Respites, along with some internet sleuthing to find a few more (and to find the opening dates for each one). Because of this, I may have missed a few.

There were a handful of peer respites for which I could not pin down a for-certain, exact date for. I did include these in the dataset as I was able to find rough estimates.

I have also not done a deep dive for all peer respites that were unsuccessful, which may skew the data a little bit.

I included Soteria Vermont as well, as it technically fits the definition despite being specifically for people with psychosis

If you would like to help get a peer respite off the ground, I would recommend donating to Peer Support Space Inc.'s Orlando FL Peer Respite. Their soft launch is November 2023, and they are scheduled to open to the public in January 2024. This is really important, because Florida's only peer respite has recently permanently closed.

If you're interested in starting your own peer respite, the National Empowerment Center has a list of resources here.

If you are interested in seeking help from a peer respite, there is a directory of most of them here. You can also look at the Google Doc I created to compile my data, which has a few more/is slightly more updated - though it's not nearly as nicely put together as the other one!

If anyone would like to add any information, non-US peer respites, etc, feel free to!

also 8. an arm sneaking around a waist, holding them close with psyche (or, substitution eli if youd prefer) plus character of choice

in the aftermath the lines between crews are blurred as they mingle and drink and party; psyche falls in step with ace and caledula when they can't find kidd and killer, laughing and leaning and finally letting themself breath. they don't get drunk - can't - but they almost feel it secondhand.

ace's head falls to their shoulder a little while later, drowsy. psyche startles, cloth smudging as they dig their hand into the dirt, but he's undeterred and after a moment, so are they.

or they would be, if it wasn't for their idiot of a captain.

"psyche," kidd snaps, not quite a growl. psyche looks up and around until they see him, eyebrows raised in question. "where the hell've you been?"

"... right here, captain?" they let their skepticism seep into their voice, layered and sharp. "you n' kil are the- the ones who ran off all by your lonesome. come on."

there must be some slip in their expression, because instead of goading him into an argument he just rolls his eyes and drops down next to them, arm sliding around their waist. in the moment it takes them to look around for killer - and find him, a few steps away talking to roronoa - kidd yanks them into his lap.

ace's head falls and he startles awake, hat catching fire as he glowers at kidd. "hey-! they were here first, asshole, give 'em back."

"they're my damn crew," kidd retorts, "and i get to do whatever the hell i want."

psyche sighs and makes pained eye contact with caledula, who sits there unhelpfully and looks amused, raising one eyebrow at them as if to ask: what the hell are you going to do about it?

"both of you- fuck off," they mutter, wiggling out of kidd's grasp and crawling over to lay down in caledula's lap.

she blinks down at them, bottle hanging loosely from her hand, and shrugs as she sets it down. "that settles that. go find your damn husbands, we're gonna sit down right here and wait."

ace blinks and jolts at the reminder, exhaustion snapping away as he jumps to his feet. "you're right, yamato wouldn't do this to me- i'm gonna go get him, so don't go anywhere, okay?"

"wouldn't dream of it," dula drawls. his gaze strays to kidd in challenge as he cards a hand through the yarn of psyche's hair. "and you?"

"one of mine is right fuckin' there," kidd snarls. psyche opens one eye and shoots him a warning look, and he glares right back, stubborn. "you're gonna pay for this one later, stuffie."

"go get kil, idiot, 'm napping."

"you're gonna wish you were napping when i'm done with you." psyche snickers, and kidd groans, reaching over to tap them on the head with an empty bottle. "you're such a piece of shit, whatever. a couple weeks without your captain and it's all fuckin'- insubordination central, i see how it fuckin' is. mutiny. kil wouldn't do this to me."

"he would," killer says, having finally wandered back over from his own conversation. there's the telltale strain to his voice already, and he doesn't say anything else, just crouches down next to kidd and leans.

kidd jerks his hand in his direction, raising his eyebrows in challenge. psyche stays put, just as stubborn - when he really wants them over there, they'll know. nobody knows the next time these crews'll see each other (not that psyche wants to be thinking about it, on a night like this) and, of course, dula's lap is comfy.

they won't make him wait too long, though. they've missed their captain and first mate far too much for that.

and here is the thing. all psych wards are bad. every single one. I don’t think there is such a thing as a good psych ward—I’m willing to believe that there are some good people who work in psych wards, who have good intentions, and who might end up helping some people. but the psych ward as a whole? There are no good psych wards. The structure of a psych ward inherently prevents it from being good. Even if you personally think you had a good experience in a psych ward, most likely what that means is that the abusive practices weren’t used on you. But those things are still there. even if you weren’t put into solitary confinement, it is extremely likely that your psych ward still had a room for that. even if you weren’t drugged without your consent, it is very likely other people were being drugged without consent!! even if you weren’t strip searched, or tied to your bed, or starved…it is VERY likely that your psych ward has protocols for all these things and regularly does them to many people who come through the ward! And it is vital to think about how your race, class, and other identities affected your experience before making broad claims about things “never happening” in psych wards.

Psych wards are inherently violent, oppressive, and unethical based solely on the fact that they are a form of incarceration, but even beyond that? If a psych ward is committed to enforcing compliance and incarceration, it is going to have some of those abusive measures that I listed above, and that is going to be standard protocol. Even if there are good people working in a psych ward, their reach is going to be limited—the power of the institution means that they constantly have to weigh the decision to break the rules and help someone, or to follow violent protocols. Most clinicians and staff will choose not to lose their job and even if they find it personally distasteful, will still choose to enable these types of violence. Good people on the inside are not able to fundamentally change the reality of what psych wards are and what they can do.

I strongly believe that people who say they have good experiences are the outlier and also are likely to be white and rich. Even if people don’t think that their experience was abusive, a lot of people generally find it boring, unhelpful, and mediocre. And so, so many people are experiencing abuse in a daily fucking basis in these places. Even if there are individuals who manage to escape the worst of a psych ward, the fact that the psych ward has the power, structure, and protocol to do these things to anyone is a problem.

autism brain vs adhd brain