📚 Gib Toko bed time story (Bonus points if it's Baz or Gerdie doing it)
(So...I ended up writing something a bit silly for this, and it kinda veers from the original prompt. But I hope you enjoy it anyway!)
“All settled in?” Gerdie asked, lowering himself to sit on the edge of Toko’s bed.
The young girl nodded despite squirming under the blankets. “Yep! So what’s the story for tonight?”
“Well, it’s actually a new story…but it might even seem familiar.”
Gerdie cast a very subtle glance toward Toko’s door, his expression souring for a moment, before turning back to the expectant youngling. He cleared his throat.
“Once upon a time, there was a huge, terrible monster with a voracious appetite. So voracious in fact, that he ate all the clearly-marked leftovers in the fridge—“
The mechanic was promptly interrupted by a loud groan from beyond Toko’s room. A large shadow appeared in the door frame not a moment later.
“Seriously? You’re still hung up over that?” Baz sighed.
Gerdie turned, his previously calm expression now a mixture of annoyance and exasperation. “What do you mean ‘still’? Of course I’m hung up over that! You ate my food!”
The captain scoffed in reply. “Gerd, that was over a week ago. I said I was sorry, remember? Can’t you just let it go?”
Like the flip of a switch, Gerdie’s aggravation melted into confusion. He gave Baz a puzzled look. “What? No, I’m talking about yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Baz repeated. “I didn’t eat your food yesterday.”
Gerdie furrowed his brow, anger completely fading. “What? Then who—“
As if a light bulb went off in their heads simultaneously, the two turned their attention toward Toko.
The girl had huddled down lower under the covers while they were going back and forth. Now only her head was visible, and she smiled sheepishly up at them. “…Oops?”
Gerdie’s jaw dropped and he simply stared at her in disbelief, Baz’s thunderous laughter booming behind him.
“Miss Toko!” he finally exclaimed, finding his voice. “How could you?!”
Toko winced at the accusation. “I’m sorry! I was hungry so I looked in the fridge and saw the takeout box from the diner a couple days ago and the food inside smelled really good but I knew it wasn’t mine so I was gonna ask if I could have some but then you left to pick up fuel for the ship and I was still hungry and…I couldn’t help myself, okay!”
Gerdie sat in stunned silence during her explanation, still reeling over the fact that Toko had stolen his food this time.
Baz’s laughter was the only sound filling the room for a brief moment, but it eventually died down. The captain’s crap-eating grin had yet to disappear, however. “Nice one kid,” he chuckled.
At this, Gerdie shot him a bitter and somewhat smug look. “Like father, like daughter.”
That shut Baz right up. A faint blush suddenly painted his cheeks, though it was barely noticeable in the dim light.
Now that the captain was in his place, Gerdie turned back around and found that Toko had retreated even farther into the covers. His expression softened and he sighed. “Look, I’m not actually mad about what happened. Just…in the future, don’t take things that aren’t yours without asking first. Okay?”
Posture relaxing, Toko slowly reappeared and nodded. “Okay…sorry about eating your food.”
“It’s quite alright,” Gerdie replied, smiling. Then he turned to look at Baz. “You know, you could learn a thing or two from the youngling.”
Baz frowned. “What, like getting out of trouble easily because she’s cute?”
Gerdie and Toko stared at him in surprise. Suddenly realizing what he’d said, Baz scrambled to reclaim his dignity. “It’s, uh…an unfair advantage, is all I’m saying.”
A beat of awkward silence passed before Baz walked out of the room, bluntly urging Gerdie to “tell the kid her bedtime story so she can go to sleep.”
Shaking his head and smiling, Gerdie glanced at Toko. “Well, how about a real story? Captain’s orders.”
“Yes please!” said Toko, nodding enthusiastically.
Gerdie laughed at the young girl’s excitement. “Alright, one story coming up! Once upon a time…”
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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)
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