when u go to write a mentally ill person in ur story you are presented two options. the first option is to write your mental illness realistically as you actually experience it with all the ups and downs and people who are like you will resonate with it and feel seen. except every person who reads instagram infographics on mental health that uses the phrase narcicisst for anyone who does anything that crosses them and unironically call themself a dark empath will call you scary and tell you that youre demonizing mentally ill people
the second option is to lie and write inspiration porn for those people to get hard to
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Book 2 au: sparring sessions and short hair katara
They like to have sparring sessions in order to keep their bending skills sharp. They allow themselves to go all out and not hold back at all cause they know if anyone got hurt, Katara could just heal them
But anyways, wouldn't it be kinda funny if Zuko accidentally burned Katara's hair tho? Aofkqldkkajfjd
The "I think we can save the hairloops" line is from @linnoya-writes thank you for that!! :>>
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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.
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My wife/partner/best friend of 22 years passed away right before Christmas, after losing her battle with cancer. She was my entire world. My only love. My best friend since we were 10. My girlfriend since we were 14. My wife since we were 29. I don't know who I am in this world without her.
This is me, trying to navigate life.
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Zelda goes mushroom girl
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couldnt stop thinking about this idea i had of lu tens spirit being tethered to his medal that zuko gave iroh at his funeral so hes now cursed to have a front row seat to all their life-threatening shenanigans without actually being able to do anything about it so hes the most stressed guardian spirit of all time
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putting that hyper intelligence to good use
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I want a Steve who genuinely doesn't want to play DnD because it's just not his thing! He enjoys watching and thinks some of it seems fun, but just isn't interested in the time commitment, or the math, or various other parts of it.
HOWEVER he does demand, like a child when they find out someone is writing a book, to be put in every single campaign as a random npc. He doesn't want to sit down for hours roleplaying, but he does want that seductress in the tavern to have good hair and be named Stevana.
And this isn't like, something the others don't know about, it's very obvious who it is each campaign. Sometimes Eddie even convinces Steve to do the voice for the character if it's a fun one and Steve isn't at work. Steve enjoys how much it both amuses and gets on various Hellfire members nerves, especially because his characters are always... Pretty out there.
Gareth and Jeff tend to be amused by Steve's characters, unless they are actively getting in their way and even then Jeff at least normally just finds them hilarious. Freak continues to want to study Steve like a bug. A crowd favorite for the CC members but a point of annoyance for the Party was the character that Steve pitched that was infatuated with that quest's main villain and would appear randomly just to say something really suggestive about the big bad, inconvenience them somehow even in a really minor way, and then dip. They were definitely supposed to be rescuing Stefano at one point but he was basically kidnapping himself at several points. Dustin is perpetually annoyed because Steve won't play with them for real, but he WILL play a random bimbo that starts them on a quest and enjoys flirting with the older members characters.
(Will and Lucas are... Maybe a little disappointed he's never flirted with their characters but also, Steve would never do that lol.)
Eddie is fine with it, he thinks this is a great compromise. He gets that Steve doesn't want to do hours long storytelling sessions, but this way he still gets to enjoy time with Steve doing one of his favorite things - creating characters and writing the most annoying stories possible. He loves that Steve is participating in even just a small way, and honestly only having him participate for a little bit at a time is better for Eddie's ability to stay on task anyway. He knows Steve wouldn't have fun being a player but he also knows Steve loves being a problem.
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His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
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before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.
you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"
and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.
it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.
you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.
in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.
the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.
you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.
after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.
the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.
you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.
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MORE BABY XIAOTIAN AND DAD WUKONG CAUSE IM IN A MOOD
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i think the idea of v finding uzis last name hilarious is a really funny one
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