#I am on life support

[a-a-lost-munchkin]

No one’s talking about it yet, but the instrumentals were god tier this saga.

Jorge’s crafted a musical where the instrumentals are just as integral to the storytelling as the vocals. He, over the course of the musical, got us accustomed to the specific instruments and motifs of each character. He did it so meticulously and so well that even those who didn’t watch his behind the scenes explaining the importance of each could pick it up.

And it all came to head in this saga. Not only did we get to hear these instruments and motifs, not only did we get to hear them playing and merging together, we got to hear them converge and make new melodies together. Fuck- we got to hear them hesitantly greeting each other before figuring out how to dance together.

The result was a huge emotional release- one that’s been building since the Troy saga. I was so overcome by the music- things I recognized- that I kept finding myself getting up, turning, lying back down, and getting up again.

This is one of my favorite musicals of all time.

Bravo, Jorge. Bravo, cast of Epic. Simply, bravo.

[xamaxenta]

😔😔😔 ch1105 no signs of Dragon

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

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.

Plain-text version:

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!

P.S. 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.

[morganmnemonic]

I can't stop thinking about the relationship between Jon and Helen as perhaps one of the most important ones in the entire show. They are narrative parallels for each other, and they both know it. They've both known it from the very start!

Helen walks into the Archives, paranoid, unsure of who to trust, and Jon sees himself in her. And he thinks "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." Then he can't save her. The next time they meet, she's a monster. They're both monsters. There was never any other way their stories could have gone, their fates entwined from the very start.

And Helen answers his original thought with one of her own: "Maybe if we can help each other, there's hope for us both." But Jon looks at her and sees everything that he fears becoming, and so he turns her away, and refuses to accept that their stories are still one and the same.

Helen went to the last person who was ever kind to her, the only person who both knew her as a human and had the context to understand what she'd become, and he hated her. He hated her because he liked Helen, and told her that she couldn't be Helen.

So she stopped trying to be Helen, and embraced being a monster. Reveled in it even. Then Jon wakes up from a six month coma, more monster than person, and tries so hard to cling to the things that mattered to him when he was human. Even with no support, even with the entire archives staff against him, he chooses humanity and compassion over and over again.

And this is a direct threat to Helen's world view. Their stories are entwined. If Jon can continue to be a person even after everything he's been through, then she could have clung to her humanity too, if only she'd tried a little harder. And that terrifies her! She wants to conceptualize herself as someone who was completely overwhelmed by forces beyond her control, who never had a choice but to become a monster. She want's to be an innocent victim. But Jon argues with his actions that they'd both had choices.

And, Jon, in turn, holds out hope that she might make better choices until the very end.

This is the conflict between them for all of season 4 and 5. Jon wants to prove that they can both be decent people, and Helen wants to prove that they were never going to be anything but monsters. This is why she's so devoted to trying to goad Jon into enjoying his newfound godhood. She knows that they are the same, and wants that to mean that he has a spark of evil inside of him, and not that she was always capable of doing good.

When Jon kills her, she loses her life, but wins the argument. Helen is nothing but a dangerous monster who needs to be killed for the good of everyone, and in the moment he decides that, Jon dooms himself to the same fate. Their stories are one and the same. "If i can help her, maybe there's hope for me too." he thought. But he couldn't help her, refused to, even, in the one moment when it actually mattered. And thus, there was never hope for him.

[ravenpureforever]

On one hand, Young Justice is kind of neglected by the actual superheroes that should be looking out for them in a lot of crucial ways and very much failed by the adults around them

But on the other hand Red Tornado straight up hosts a parent-teacher conference where their respective legal guardians all show up, barring Batman who’s in traffic so Nightwing fills in instead because Robin’s dad does not know he’s a vigilante which is objectively hilarious

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

With the end of season two comes a second redraw!

[Nov 2022] [June 2023] [June 2024]

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

I'm really sorry and I know this seems really silly but. would it be possible for yall to stop sending me the Santa Claus supports the postal strike video?

I'm trying my best not to misplace my frustration and exhaustion to the people striking, but it's getting to be really hard to be asked for solidarity from a union that provides no support to the peripheral victims affected.

The people whose entire small businesses are facing hardships all the way to bankruptcy. The people who have their health cards, government IDs, passports in the unmoving pile of mail and no workable alternative.

From a logical viewpoint it's of no fault of the workers to demand what they deserve. I should know what direction to point my frustrations at.

From an emotional viewpoint, Santa doesn't need to pay for rent, food, or receive benefits in the mail, and all it does is highlight how little I and other people like me matter because hey!

Santa Claus knows the right thing to do, do you?

[teaboot]

tranny freak :)

[fisherrprince]

Instead of writing a fanfic like a normal person this oneshot turned into two separate, contextless things,

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[longmaxsilvarg]

[1-800-luvmail]

[ read part two w/ könig here ! ]

reader who would rather eat cardboard than have their self sufficiency questioned vs cod men [ 1 / ? ]

price— who is fighting the urge to just take the jar and help you the minute he sees you struggle with the tight lid— tries to reason with you as you insist you've almost got it.

"sweetheart," he sighs, watching with his arms crossed as you continue your stubborn attempt, "why don't you let me have a go, hm?"

"it's basically open— this stupid lid just won't—" you grumble, more to yourself than to him. he's unsure which is more stubborn: the lid of the jar or you.

eventually, you do get it open.

"see! hah! i told you—" you grin, triumphantly holding the jar up for him to see.

"that you did," price can't help but be slightly amused, "many times."

"and i was right."

strangely, you never struggle with a jar like that again. not like you think much about it, just happy about your little victories. and now, you offer to open everything for him. price lets you.

he's never telling you that he's made a habit of loosening the lids before you can get to them, because, god that smile of yours as you succeed in "helping" him is just too adorable.

[paperglader]

they really put alicent in bridgerton blue on the reunion and genuinely expected me to think that she didn’t in fact march all the way to dragonstone to get wifed up? bfr

[ancientouroboros]

this doesn't really count as a preview of my piece for the 2025/2026 gravity falls hunkles calendar but it doesn't really not count either

and the only way to understand what I mean, because I never remember to post my calendar art, is to go order one from @gfhunklescalendar and be part of the history we're making...together

after you order your calendar drop me an ask with your hunkle stan thoughts and I'll try to turn some of them into art

[hrokkall]

Somebody else

[heymacy]

IAN GALLAGHER + his journey with bipolar disorder

╰┈➤ “At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of." - Carrie Fisher