Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
16K notes
·
View notes
you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.
you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.
instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.
you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.
your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.
because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.
so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.
all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.
5K notes
·
View notes
While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.
Bye.
490 notes
·
View notes
From the firmament above, a blood-red eye looks down upon us.
376 notes
·
View notes
I feel like everyone’s fandom experience would maximize in joy once it’s established that enjoyment is very much subjective, and cannot impact you unless you allow it
249 notes
·
View notes
Jay's hypocrisy is a little bit endearing to me ngl; he'll go on twitter to bitch about how much totheark stalking/filming him is causing life-ruining paranoia & then turn around and post video footage of himself stalking Alex for months and reading Tim's medical records out loud to an audience with seemingly no conscious thought connecting the two actions as The Same Thing
216 notes
·
View notes
Every now and then I see a post that reminds me that most non-kin have an idea of the otherkin community that's defined more by people who made fun of us than by our community itself
If you heard about otherkin through general tumblr osmosis but never made an effort to actually understand us, your mental image of otherkin is mostly likely informed by people who pretended to be otherkin to start drama with the express intent to get people to hate us. It was really common a while back for anti-kin to create blogs posing as otherkin and post absurd, ridiculous, and inflammatory things like "I'm plantkin and keeping houseplants is slavery" or "I'm dragonkin and I ate my mom's jewelry". If you actually knew anything about the community it was fairly easy to figure out that these blogs were trolls, but most of the people on tumblr at the time either didn't know enough to be able to tell, or didn't even consider that they might be fake
And the most upsetting part? It fucking worked. So many people still seem to think that those posts were genuine reflections of what being otherkin means and how we act or talk about our kin identities
2K notes
·
View notes
So I’m gonna say something crazy… but have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe… and hear me out… the core four group in the show about “outcasts and wierdos” ISN’T supposed to have a straight-white-able-bodied-all-american male that people from that group can easily project on to? That maybe the straight-white-male audience might have to contend with the fact that they find relatability in characters who are black, disabled, or gay? That MAYBE there isn’t supposed to be this pov character that easily fits into these conventions that they’ve been so used to seeing in popular media but that’s also kind of the point?
767 notes
·
View notes
there's really nothing more attractive than kindness
5K notes
·
View notes
Identity reveal shazamily fic idea:
They're fighting some big bad in a huge cave or throne room or in an air pocket miles underwater (the Rock?) and the league and shazamily are all there, every two stuck in separate areas (magic barriers? Cave ins? Enemies simply not letting them close?).
The roof is starting to collapse. Billy catches it, but with his powers divided, he's struggling. With a time limit before he falls, the battle intensifies.
Mary and her jl partner fells her opponent first, and looks across the room just in time to see him stagger under the crushing weight. She cannot reach him (in time?). They meet each others eyes. The wisdom of Solomon, or perhaps Mary batson, has an idea.
In a crash of thunder, she detransforms, in front of their enemies, and the entire justice league.
With power returned, captain marvel stands a bit straighter. The roof grows heavier. Cracks scatter across the high ceiling.
As Mary is carried to safety, the family understands what they must do.
In conjunction with the league member they were trapped with, they work to defeat their opponents, and one by one transform, each time revealing people too small, too young. The crash of thunder marks each victory. Rubble starts to fall and shake the earth as the league members pull their partners to safety, gathering together by the entrance, bandaging their wounds. All eyes are on Marvel, trapped under a great pillar of stone. (They have been working with him for years now, but each of his family has been revealed to be children. Is he, too?) Each time he raises the ceiling a little higher, and each time it grows heavier as the battles and the ticking clock destabilise the thousands of tons above.
At last, the final group win, and exhausted league members piggy back the last child hero over the rubble.
All are evacuated, but Marvel cannot move. Rapid power transfer and hours of stress have taken their toll, and he needs to transform back as well.
Finally, finally, green lantern and superman reach him, and with their help he is freed, collapsing to the side in relief. No one says a word.
With one final lightning strike, the last member of the team is revealed.
He's twelve years old.
And the league needs to take them all to safety.
515 notes
·
View notes
i love this doctor who comic from 1967 which has an unintentional great transgender dalek punchline
93 notes
·
View notes
25.07.2023
Raining, pouring, storming today, so cosy study session 🫖☕📒🎧🧦⛈️
223 notes
·
View notes
in 1883 in the first recorded rodeo takes place in pecos, texas. in 2001 rob smets attends the PBR world finals in jeans and a sports jersey bearing sponsor logos. in 1568 the gelosi acting company coalesces in italy to perform the hot new style of live improv entertainment. in 1780 joseph grimaldi makes his stage debut at 2 years old at london’s famed drury lane. in the many, many years before any white person ever laid eyes on it, a man in what you’d now call northern arizona paints his body in black and white stripes and puts corn husks in his hair. in 1557 ivan the terrible is pallbearer to a man who walked naked in the streets of moscow. in 2017 the ringling bro’s circus announces its last show, 146 years after the titular brothers first formed it. all of these moments (and more!) have lived in my head rolling around like marbles for years now and im so happy to now have the proper method to infect your mind as well:
History of Fools is a hobby project of mine i've been working on for over a year now! part essay series, part half-assed podcast, part descent into madness, this little diddy is the culmination of years' worth of highly specific insanity. i have 4 half hour-ish essays/episodes out now reviewing the histories of:
Jesters!
Commedia Dell'arte!
Sacred Clowns and Holy Fools!
and my personal favorite (seriously if you listen to or read any please choose this one) Rodeo Clowns!
I have more episodes planned to get into clowns proper, hoping to come out in 2024. but until then please take a read or a listen and let me know what you think!
CLICK HERE FOR FOOLS!
115 notes
·
View notes
oh my fucking god i feel. SO stupid rn at How i didnt make the (super sane very normal just absolutely. Yes. Surely) connection earlier but uhh
so anyway im now like 89% certain that whatever the "traces" of the narwhal that remain on ajax and facilitate their (ever-growing) innate connection are like. an actually fundamental aspect of it (them?) more or less.
why? because if you consider its pov just for a moment. the narwhal was literally about to depart teyvat for good. it had nearly finished consuming the primordial sea and preparing to breach surface to finish the job by eating the french for the leftovers their human bodies were made from. its an interstellar voyager it does not linger on planets it devours. it goes glug glug and it leaves.
and like if it wasnt for traveler intervening its confirmed through narzissenkreuz and renes world formula that teyvat wouldve just been destroyed. no one could have stopped the narwhal not neuvillette not focalors not anyone.
so what was the one other thing it did right before going for that french brunch? calling for ajax. getting them reunited in the primordial sea. like all the possible implications aside bc theres many different ways to speculate on the exact reasons why and the nature of that link. the point remains.
it wasnt leaving teyvat without finding him.
like the narwhal is about to fucking Dip from this cringe planet and whatever part of it that ajax carries within himself his narwhal Absolutely wanted to be reunited with. what the fuck am i supposed to read from that. hoyo???????!??! answers?!?!?!
and its not only the calling from the narwhal side itself either bc this is ALL coinciding with the growth of a 'restless power' within ajax and his vision malfunctioning (the things celestia is literally confirmed to harvest energy thru to repair its damaged authority) and his connection with the narwhal reaching an actual conscious level (arguably subconscious n emotional too bc i find it Curious his mood is poor right as the narwhal is repeatedly described as positively malding to the point its boss fight mechanic is literally a rage meter). ajax' power is growing. his destiny is starting to shift and something is drawing him to fontaine... right as the narwhal is getting close to finished with the primordial sea. funny how it overlaps eh. how it aligns 🤨🤨 why are they orbiting each other like this (they should kiss)
(& not to even Mention how ajax just Happened to get that absolutely exponential and borderline unbelievable feat of power spike in extending his foul legacy endurance as massively as he did. while. within the primordial sea. with his narwhal. who had at that point all but incorporated the power of that sea into itself. i s2g if childe was getting passive home turf co-op bonus exp with a 4x multiplier automatically the whole 40+ days 💀💀)
78 notes
·
View notes