#system representation

Holt Hyde and Jackson Jekyll would quite litteraly be INCREDIBLE for Gen 3's representation, especially when we never hear about trauma based disorders portrayed well in media

Instead of making Holt and Jackson essentially a system because of their mom, why not change that? Maybe dudes do have the Jekyll/Hyde body transformation shit, but that never came with the completely different people seen in the Gen 1 Holt and Jackson, maybe it's more like the original novella where it's two bodies one mind. The completely different people come via trauma they experience as a kid, which each manifest into different alters and physical forms, therefore, keeping them as "monsters", while not being fucking ableist for the hell of it 💀 (Plus, Mattel, if you take this idea and make it to where each alter, besides Holt, manifests as a different physical form you can make more merchandise based on each alter, and therefore more money... You know... If you ever want a "real" reason to make them a canon system...)

Spoilers for Terramortis below;

Disability-focused/centric: yes

Created by a disabled person/people: yes

Disability represented: dissociative identity disorder

Fiction or non-fiction: non-fiction

Summary:

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First Person Plural is about Dr. West's experience with DID; discovering he has it, discovering his childhood trauma, overcoming denial, finally accepting himself and his alters, and managing his day-to-day life.

Trigger warnings: child sexual abuse, sex, ableism (including internalised ableism), self-harm, and dissociation. Also there is some (less graphic/ obvious than the above) sexism and, if I recall correctly, racism.

Why I Think It's Good:

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It's one of the few pieces of media about DID I've found that is written by someone with DID, doesn't sensationalise DID, and doesn't demonise it or act like it's "evil alter disorder" (which is impressive 'cause some of Dr. West's alters have really hurt their body and themselves). It just shows Dr. West's experience.

We have so many. The (names in a state of flux) DID system in Cord of Three is probably our favorite. There's three main adult people in their system along with a lot of fragments and littles. The main three are healers, basically doctors with a bit of healing magic in addition to knowledge about medications and mental illnesses. They've each got a somewhat different bedside manner, different handwriting, and different specialties in terms of healthcare. We used to work healthcare, and those three are based on rough trends of coworkers we've had:

the gruff leader, you better do it the right way every time, I'm harsh on you because this is super important, kind of person who really cares a lot but you might not think so at first

the somewhat more distant person who is all about learning about rare conditions and views medicine as more like a puzzle than about a thing affecting people,

and the very hands-on, kind and empathetic, dig down into the roots of what's going on both physically and emotionally, and let's work together to figure out how to fix this kind of person.

These folks recognize that our main hero of Cord of Three has suddenly become plural through magical means in a way that's never happened before, and help a lot with them figuring things out. There's a lot of "well my system works this way, because for us it's a post-traumatic disorder, so this advice might not work" and the culture clash of people vs parts, psychological vs spiritual, medical vs nonmedical. It's gonna be great, and everything we've learned in syscourse is going into this. :)

But Era's End has to be finished first.

I might let myself rewrite a few scenes of Cord of Three every now and then as a treat. 😅

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Lydia was almost amused, huffing a dark laugh. "Lawrence is dad's name." Day 28 of #PalettesofPride2023 is the Pangender flag! This handsome fella is Sir Lawrence and god only knows what his gender or sexuality is. He hasn't been officially introduced in the books yet, but he has been mentioned a couple of times as a member of Josh's system! Formed when Josh was eighteen years old, Sir Lawrence is the gatekeeper of Josh's system, and an internal protector. His personality and name seem to be based on games Josh used to play with the Squad when they were children, and he holds exomemories of the stories they'd tell about him.

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Sure, there are a few mistakes in game such as vocabulary (use of word “personality” instead of “alter” for example) he’s actually pretty well written as far as characters with DID go.

It’s acknowledged that some alters can be co-conscious while others can have amnesia barriers, which is quite advanced for DID portrayal in fiction. Also, through therapy Athena actively acknowledges in-system communication.

His trauma is not shied away from, but it’s not pried into either. A lot of portrayals are either invasive for shock value or simply scared to acknowledge that systems are traumagenic. In Uendo + co’s case the balance is perfect. It’s pretty easy to figure out what his trauma is related to based on his alts (eg. his protector being a sex worker and his trauma holder being 5 years old), but it’s subtle.

I think the fact that three alts are sharing the front most of the time is certainly unusual, but in a good way. I actually really like the fact that co-fronting is used by the system to help them do better at their job. For context, Uendo is a Rakugo performer so being able to get different alts to portray different characters gives the illusion of acting range. It’s another way the system helps him to survive, and it’s one of the few portrayals of alts working together I’ve ever seen.

Whilst it’s obvious what the alts’ roles are (Owen is clearly a trauma holder, Patches is a social alt + caretaker, while Kisegawa is a protector + sexual alt) it’s not something that too much attention is drawn to. I like this. It allows them to shine through as individuals instead of faceless disorder symptoms.

Oh, and I think that the subversion of stereotypes was used quite well - the killer in his case tried to use his DID against them to frame Owen for the crime, and everyone jumped to accuse him due to ableist misunderstanding of alters and how they work. When it is revealed that Owen is a child everybody is proven wrong and a valuable lesson is learned about stereotyping. This is a nice move to be honest, because the more we challenge the garbage stereotype of the “violent alter” the better.

So we’ve got a system portrayed in a story, who are harmless to others and who work together to survive and communicate internally, who all take on roles that are clearly beneficial and healthy. We have a portrayal of a system that acknowledges the existence of dormancy, switch amnesia and even co-fronting. We have a portrayal that isn’t afraid to show the traumagenic side of systems while also not being disrespectful and invasive. 

I also love their character design a LOT because the alts are distinctly different through subtle ways in which they emote and carry themselves. Just look at how much individuality they all have, despite all sharing a body! They’re all so gorgeous!

Overall, I think Ace Attorney did an AMAZING job portraying DID through Uendo. Thumbs up from me and my whole system for that! This is the ONLY system portrayal we’ve ever seen that we can relate to and that doesn’t make us feel offended or attacked! STUNNING.

I love Uendo and co. and I would DIE for them.

It’s thanks to these characters in particular that we were able to start realising who we were and to start communicating with each other. Uendo and co. are genuinely one of the reasons we are now a healthier system.

Ooh that's a tricky one. The answer is spoilery for the movie on question to the point I can't even say the name and say there's a system in it so it'll be after the cut.