#I really want to talk to people

[cha1cedony]

Do people (on here) actually use the DnDads Patreon Discord server? :0 Debating if I should join or not. I probably won’t talk like at all but. shrug

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[chittychittyyangyang]

Listen, you should never film strangers in public without their consent, but I swear there need to be fines or something for people who do that shit in some spaces. For example: I had to go to the ER last night, and some jerk filmed a woman who just came in and was clearly having an asthma attack. She immediately got to go back, and he was unhappy about that. Believe me, I get that it sucks having to wait when you're in pain, but you don't get to pick who deserves care when. The medical system in the US is a nightmare, and the ER could be the worst moment of someone's life. No one deserves to be recorded because some jack ass believes someone doesn't look like they need care.

This is fine to reblog. People who film strangers should be shamed if nothing else.

[danlous]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[bunnieswithknives]

As much as I love angst I think it would be funny if he just didnt give af

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Flower Empowered.

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[kindnessoverperfection]

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

[goat-moth-thing]

i think some get angry at transmascs for discussing our oppressiin because they view invisibility as a privilege rather than a way in which we are oppressed

when their view of invisibility as a privilege is challenged, they lash out and say that we want to be oppressed soooo bad and that we need to shut up

and of course, if we do shut up then nothing changes. we remain invisible and nobody sees us. or talks about us. or cares about us

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo standing up for his brothers in the things that really matter to them.

Like- Leo is the one who immediately pushes Mikey and Donnie into finding Raph the second it’s clear that their oldest brother is missing because he knows Raph can’t handle being separated like that.

Leo is the one who stands up for Mikey when Mikey wants to go on a solo mission, actively vouching for him and being the one to convince Raph into letting Mikey go, because being independent and proving himself just as capable of standing on his own two feet as everyone else means so much to Mikey.

And Leo defends Donnie’s honor in particular when his brothers’ intelligence is insulted because Leo is well aware of how important Donnie’s smarts are to him - and how important having those smarts valued and acknowledged is as well.

All this goes right into just how well Leo knows his brothers. For as much as he’ll tease or fight with them, he knows them, and he loves them.

[st-hedge]

*wheezing and heaving* *shoves metal gear solid and nier automata into a blender* *slams the shitass smoothie into pint glass* *hysterically throws it back* i finished the line up. im at peace now

[knifearo]

happy pride to all the aromantics out there :) your experience with love is undeniably queer and your presence in the community is so valuable. love loses <2

[frostedpuffs]

does anyone else ever feel like they never Fit In fandom spaces like. sure i create stuff SOMETIMES but i feel like such an outsider in the fandom and idk why asdkfsakdf

[pixelaves]

i love character development

[deadpoets]

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) dir. Peter Weir

[chilly-lily]

whoever popularized the “amity wants hunter dead” fanon is literally my worst enemy. like look at this. they’re buddies. imagine being wrong about Everything

and the fact that amity is second to the airship before they realize that hunter wasn’t actually taken.. she does not hate that boy!! they are friends!!!