#abuse mention

[sweetpea67]

I need to talk about the way NK Jemisin plays with our expectations regarding morality throughout The Inheritance Trilogy.

The first book introduces us to the divine pantheon via Arameri propaganda—essentially, the god of light and order = good while the god of darkness and chaos = bad and the goddess of twilight and life and death was also bad but she’s dead now. And (predictably to anyone with a basic knowledge of genre conventions) this turns out to be BS. The god currently on top actually turns out to have started the whole war and killed his sister and enslaved his brother for no reason, and the god who essentially is introduced as the bogeyman is really the victim in this whole scenario. This parallels the ongoing revelations that the Arameri are evil cutthroat tyrants actually. So the story ends with the gods we’ve learned to like escaping the control of the Arameri and turning the tables on the evil head honcho god. Readers learn a valuable—if well-trodden in media—lesson about not making assumptions and how order and light =/= good and darkness and chaos =/= evil.

And if that were all there was, that’d still be playing with genre narratives regarding light vs. darkness and order vs. chaos and thus would be moderately interesting. But probably not interesting enough to inspire this long-as-hell post.

HOWEVER.

The next book does something even more interesting—it flips the script. We follow a close confidant of the evil god who did all the bad shit and we learn that he, also, is more complex than he seems! We learn that he felt abandoned by his siblings and was manipulated by someone and while this does not excuse any of the bad shit he did, it does give us more context. And on the flip side, we see more vengeful sides of the “good” deities we know and love. Even the few human characters who seemed purely good in book one are revealed to be not so—for example, the kindly man who was appointed the new ruler pulls out someone’s tongue with tongs. Meanwhile we also learn that as terrible as the Arameri are their absence could potentially have even worse results.

And THEN book three takes it further, where we see that even the goddess who up until now has been portrayed as the Best One did some really fucked up things before she died. Like, oh, child abuse. And she basically caused the problem that exists now. Meanwhile we get further reminders of how the war wasn’t as unnuanced as it seemed earlier.

So what we’re left with is a situation where you realize that no character is pure good or pure evil, that circumstances shape people, that change is possible if often hard, and that a single individual can be capable of great good and great evil. I find this a very refreshing take on morality.

[positivitygenic]

Would it be okay to request a positive post about systems that still live with their abusers but currently cannot leave? /nf (sorry if its very specific, we just have been struggling with that a lot and we really just need some kind words to keep surviving)

scheduled for august 18th, 4:13 pm.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

the whole "making rapists receive consequences distracts from helping victims" is so funny" because it assumes that rapists don't perceive not having access to a fresh supply of victims as a devastating consequence in itself. like idk it's just very convenient that you can frame not doing anything to prevent abusers from doing harm again (such as raising awareness about their actions, excluding them from spaces, etc) as Helping Victims instead of like. the easiest and frankly laziest way to respond to abuse.

[the-meme-monarch]

Thanks for the huge reply btw it was a fun read! Still hope to see you do more slop with like Henry and mellow it’s so visceral and I love it.

oh you may be in luck -Or Not if I never finish/post it due to self consciousness- but I’m writing a fic about them :]c sneaks peaks 🫴my writing down ideas for scenes I want to include, not necessarily in order

the stuff that’s struck though is bc I’ve properly written out the scene for it but i figure I should save that. I refer to him as mellow in all these notes but it’s going to take place prior to Getting Killed/losing his memories, so he’s going to be referred to as rodger but I’m thinking of Not Using his name most of the time…………

[earhartsease]

we have never seen Nicola Walker in anything she hasn't been bloody extraordinary in - this is a still from her in Annika, where she's a detective on the scottish coast (not doing a scottish accent, we're all relieved to know)

and we're also incredibly grateful to her for being in two separate shows that between them got us to finally speak to the cops about our abuse, which led to a whole bunch of worse shit unfolding out of our past and has helped us so much

we wish we could thank her in person but that would be deeply weird and creepy - so we're probably going to send a letter to her through her agent, as you do, and daydream about being accidentally sat next to her on a train, which has zero chance of happening given when we're on a train, so is our wheelchair, but like we said it's a daydream

[chortlebot]

a lot of negative stigma for NPD mainly comes from people who have had bad experience with people with NPD.

if you could help those people learn that not all people with NPD are like That™ (horrible and bad), would you help? if so, what would ya do?

i will be honest with you, and i know it will come off harsh. 95% of people who say they have experienced """narcissistic abuse""" are lying. not maliciously, and not about the abuse, because that absolutely happened, but i doubt any of those people are professionals who can definitively say whoever abused them was actually a narcissist. someone can just be a fucking asshole. if you're abused by someone with autism, you wouldn't call it "autistic abuse". if you were abused by someone with psychosis, you wouldn't say "psychotic abuse". the term itself is not only offensive but most of the time people don't know what they're talking about, and are also reducing people with NPD to a single list of solely negative traits.

now, for the 5% or so who actually had abusive encounters with someone who has NPD, that fucking sucks, and i'm sorry. as an in general, you have to work on internal and unconscious biases. just like someone who's getting over trauma related to men, or trauma related to any other aspect of a human, you have to expose yourself to new environments where you can encounter those people. if that isn't something you can do, you need to work internally to re-teach yourself that everyone is different, and also that most people are not looking to harm you (it's actually quite detrimental for most narcissists to purposely harm other people, it's not something we really do, but not really the point). basically you need to understand that people exist on a spectrum. there are people with cluster b disorders who are absolute angels, and some who aren't, just like the rest of humanity. it takes time and effort to overcome unconscious biases, but as long as you work on it, you will heal in time.

and again, i'd like to say as a person with NPD who's been in recovery for a long time (not for NPD specifically, but recovering in general will improve most of your symptoms of anything you have going on) that you're obviously allowed to be upset if someone has hurt you. being angry is part of the healing process. it does not, however, give you the excuse to target an entire community of people. we are capable of love, we are capable of compassion. some of us have empathy, lots of us have cognitive empathy. while i can sometimes stumble, i've gotten to the point now where my struggles aren't a side of myself that others see too often. i chose kindness, and many others have too.

[seanbiggerstaffwife]

PTSD

yeah late say this but ya I been battling besides depression and aniexty but ya i found out i have ptsd lately days are better then others some are just unbearable somedays are rough dealing things triggers me a lot i live in fear everyday my ex fiancé yes I been engaged like two times two wrong two men who freaking messed up my mental health issues i struggle so much every freaking day to be honest im very unhappy with things I hate it yet being touched being flinch my ex fiancé let's call second fiancé v's well v's used focus sexual ways towards me his mother's v's wouldn't help me at all she let her son continue this and let him cheat on me while she her other sons focus v's to french kiss one my friend and grope her while he's engaged too me he cheated on me multiple times while v's mother turns to blind eye while whole damn thing is going on while she puts words in my mouth she didn't pay no mind let her son cheat on me multiple times and doesn't pay attention shes too busy whoring around herself

[kruxband]

welcome to kruxband f/o list parents, we have:

abusive dad and neglectful mom

three abusive mom figures

abusive dad and absent mom

dead dad and dead mom

abusive dad and compliant mom

shitty dead dad and dead mom

abusive dad and mom who tried her best

dead dad & mom and abusive adoptive dad & mom and shitty dad figure