Marana, Milissa, and DID - Behind the Scenes · 8:45pm Aug 28th, 2023
Since it was brought up with the latest chapter of My Little Pony: When Friendship Shimmers - Reboot I figured I take this time to clearify that with what I'm doing with Milissa/Marana and the plot thread of the mawile having DID where an evil personality took over someone's mind, I am doing it for entertainment perposes. And I just want to state that the plans to make Marana be revealed to be an evil personality that took over control of a six year old's mind was always the plan from the start.
However, this plan does not come out of nowhere; I am basing this plot thread over something I witnessed through two different shows: Criminal Minds & Total Drama. Now I explained the whole thing with a comment to the person that brought up the issues they had with the direction I was going. And I explained to them that both Criminal MInds and Total Drama features characters with DID who had an evil personality that took control of a person's mind and subdued the original personality.
Now for both of these instances, the one from Total Drama was able to overcome the evil personality and regain control; but the one from Criminal Minds had the evil personality fully subdue the original personality. I wanted to write this kind of DID dynamic where someone developed an evil personality and began to suffer from DID had the evil personality take over the mind and subdue the original personality. I understand that DID is a very sensitive subject for some of you guys out there, but rest assured that I am only doing what I'm doing for entertainment purposes only.
Let it be known that this is my first time even writing DID in the first place, and my understanding of DID is very vague. So please bear with me and forgive me if I touch on any sore points. I also apologize if this whole evil personality take over thing is unrealistic; I am trying to do something that can be entertaining to read while informing the public.
I'm hoping to point to this blog post in case I ever get another comment about DID within My Little Pony: When Sunset Shimmers - Reboot as I understand that this is a very mature subject to be tackling with a universe made for kids. Yet, Seasame Street was able to deal with death for one if it's episodes so I'm hoping that I can tackle this very real issue of DID in the way I'm doing it for My Little Pony: When Sunset Shimmers - Reboot so that if DID is noticed in real life, and the signs of an evil personality are there, people can be made aware of it and hopefully have a way to subdue it.
Okay, I think you missed the point as to why I was upset, and that’s partially on me. The problem isn’t merely having a character with DID, the problem is the portrayal. In real life, people with DID do not have spilt personalities that are evil serial killers. That is a myth perpatrated by media like TDRI and Criminal Minds. A myth that, as I mentioned in my previous comment, perpetrates discrimination and even violence against real people with DID, and that’s what I believe is the big problem here.
You mentioned having a vague understanding of DID. That’s understandable. But since you don’t understand, I urge you to do this research. And part of that means listening to and learning from the real people who have DID, not TV shows that often sensationalize things for the sake of a story.
You say that it’s just entertainment, but as I keep saying, this can cause real harm to people with DID. And that’s what I want you to think about.
I can't believe that I actually have to say this, but as someone that actually has DID, this take is honestly ridiculous. For one, you've likely met a DID system in real life and had no idea. We're about as rare as red-heads, according to recent research, and most systems tend to be pretty covert. For another, the idea of an "evil personality" is stigmatizing BS that's become popular from movies like Split and media like TDRI and Crimminal Minds, as you yourself have mentioned. Like any other survivor of severe and horrific trauma, DID systems can have damaging behaviors like self harm and suicidal intent, as well as poor relationship skills, but almost all of the time these are directed inward to the system themself. DID forms as a way to help someone survive horrific childhood circumstances, and takes a lifetime to learn to live with and heal from. We are more likely to be abused than to be abusers due to our severe childhood trauma.
My community has been so damaged by horrible representations like the ones you're using as sources. Most of the systems I know are terrified to tell their loved ones for fear of ostracization, let alone the people they interact with out in public. Please do better. Please do proper research and don't base it off of goddamn dramatized media.
https://did-research.org/ is one of my favorite sites for surface level knowledge, and I highly suggest you give it a good look.