A camera focused on Marc as he heads towards a chair after turning on the camera. He stares awkwardly at the wall behind the camera for a moment before breathing out a short sigh and looked straight at the camera.
“Well, hi and welcome to the channel. I think.” Marc starts cautiously. “God, why are we doing this.”
After everything that happened, Marc and Steven started looking into Dissociative Identity Disorder. They wanted to know more about their situation and try to possibly learn how to live with it. It had become a sort of pastime for them after a while and something to pour their energy into on restless days.
After finding out about Jake Lockley, there’s still the whole thing with Khonshu that hasn’t been sorted out, but they’ve gotten significantly closer and more comfortable around each other. It had taken a while for that but now they have a sort-of balance in their lives.
Steven had insisted on writing notes to each other after having to find out about Harrow’s death through some of his followers jumping them on his way home from work. (half of them was in a multitude of languages from Jake’s Spanish to Steven’s Ancient Egyptian when he was feeling petty. So there now was a multitude of dictionaries, even after learning all those languages and sharing the same body. Just in case.) Marc had agreed after the third time it happened while Jake had begrudgingly agreed. The notes from Marc and Jake started short and concise at the start and Steven’s were slightly more detailed with smiley faces and questions for them. Eventually it devolved into rants and jabs at each other with little comments and doodles occasionally. Sticky notes were added to the mix at some point too.
Most recently, the system had been looking through videos on Youtube to hopefully maybe find blogs or informative videos on DID. Steven would have physically recoiled if he could (he still did in their mind). There was the smallest amount of information and representation in the vast amount of videos on Youtube. It was shocking, the amount of misinformation and the extremely frequent use of outdated and incorrect terms.
(‘Do you think before people found out about how DID is caused by trauma that they tried to exorcise them?’ Steven had asked after reading some comments arguing about whether or not systems were just people who were possessed.
‘Well, according to these comments, compadre . They still think we are.’
“Apparently we are also incompetent and DID is something… pleasurable to them.” Marc had said, disgusted while staring at an inappropriate comment.
It was safe to say that Steven had saved their laptop (and the effort of getting a lawyer for a murder charge) when his horror bled through to Jake and Marc.)
Steven was the one to suggest making the channel. He mentioned how much he struggled with the gaps in memories and the loneliness it led to. He was also absolutely livid when he found out about the mistreatment others have been receiving due to lack of information (including treating whole systems or alters as incompetent or inanimate objetcs because ‘they’re so confused and lost like a baby’ or ‘they wouldn’t remember anyways’. He’s reminded of when people yelled at him to give up the body to Marc and being treated as a punching bag. Jake remembers why his body count is so high. Marc grimaces at a memory of waking up in the psych ward with the after effects of drugs.) They had quietly agreed to make sure that at least other systems would have some sort of reassurance and less singlets would be ignorant.
And so that’s where they’re at now. A channel Marc had dubbed ‘MK System’, an image and background with lots of references to Egyption mythology (along with themselves, of course) that Steven had got to work to before the other two could protest and a description set up by Jake himself. (Jake had asked to do it in a rather roundabout manner and Steven was proud of his progress. Marc had jabbed him a lot less passive aggressively than usual.)
“So,” Marc continued after snapping back to attention. “This channel exists as our sort of way to reassure other DID systems. We don’t really do a lot of what other systems online tend to and you guys don’t have to either.” Marc’s words were clearly carefully paced to not sound rushed. “None of us or you are incompetent for being a part of a system and nor should any of us or you be treated as anything less than capable sentient beings .” A pause. “This is also serving as a fuck you to singlets and a lot of their mistreatment to systems. Not all of them, of course.” Marc tacked on the last sentence more as an afterthought.
A beat of silence passed as the man took a deep breath and settled into the chair more comfortably. Steven sent silent encouragement while Jake gave a small mental nudge (which is his own form of encouragement).
“With that out of the way, I do need to clarify that while this channel is made so other systems out there won’t feel as alone or misunderstood, we don’t exactly have any plans to dive into it.” Marc started back up while looking up to the camera from the spot on the ground he was staring at. “Hell, this might even be our only video. This isn’t some sort of deep dive into DID or something. This is just us doing whatever we want. Basically, we aren’t going to be focusing a lot on things like switching and stuff like we’ve seen other systems do.”
Marc glared at the camera. “If you think we’re lying, you can go and fuck yourselves. We do not care and your comment will not affect us, asshole. We are content with our lives and you can’t change that.”
There was a pause before Marc continued, “I should probably have mentioned this at the start but there will most likely be swearing. We won’t be restricting anything we do and if one of us wants to dump our trauma in video form, they can. So if it triggers or bothers you then click off. None of us will be forced to do or not do anything,” Marc tapped his feet on the ground while talking.
Steven gave a large grin while nodding his in agreement from the reflection in the camera lense.
“So with that out of the way I should probably introduce myself.” Marc said while moving his hands to his knees. “My name is Marc and I’m the host, which is the most prominent alter in the system or the one who fronts the most. The others will introduce themselves if they want to at some point.”
“Systems out there, you are not alone in this and can be happy while being a system. You can live as a system and you are not possessed or invalid to be one.” Marc glanced down momentarily before refocusing on the camera. “It takes time, patience and a lot of communication, you are sort-of sharing a body afterall. There probably will be some differing views and arguments but you deserve and can be happy.”
“Anyway, that’s an introductory video done.” Marc continued after making sure he didn’t miss anything important. “There isn’t going to be a schedule and I don’t know when videos will be posted.”
“Thanks for watching I guess,” Marc said, “Bye.”
He stood up from his seat and hit the off button. He breathed out and the tension in his frame finally seeped out, glad that it was over with. It had been extremely nerve wrecking and he felt slightly pinned by the camera.
‘I reckon that went well,’ Steven said from a mirror while smiling at Marc.
‘... lo hiciste genial .’ Jake’s voice was quieter, ‘ Buen trabajo .’
Marc gave a small tired smile before taking the camera off the stand and plugging it into their laptop to edit. It was probably best to finish and upload it before he decided not to.
A few hours later, a video was uploaded onto the channel with the title ‘Intro to Our System | Marc’, a thumbnail of Marc in the centre picked by Steven and a description, courtesy of Jake.
With that, they retired to bed for the night.
‘Intro to Our System | Marc’ Comments
FandomDude: Seems interesting ngl, is it difficult to share just one body?
Bruce 1305: Nice to meet ya!
CringeNameInserted: Dope, kinda weird to rp like that man
Cantaloupe: @CringeNameInserted That’s a huge misconception abt this
CringeNameInserted: @Cantaloupe Eh
Cantaloupe: @CringeNameInserted Bruh, not cool man
beantrophis: ooo ive never heard of did b4, im gonna stick around ^v^
BashNSmash: is it just me? Or is marc kinda- /hj
Simpsons: :eyes: i am looking respectfully
lilwitchboo: oh this is actually super helpful!! I thought i was going crazy!! thanks so much
MK System: glad we could help!!! Ur not alone in this!!! :) -Steven