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.
The differences between each Mega is something I love and appreciate, plus it's also fun to compare them side-by-side for it.
I think it's really amusing how they start with robots that slowly reach near-human traits, and then there's a straight-up human. Albeit, he is merged with a non-human being.
And then there's Volnutt. I know he could probably be narrowed down to an "artificial human", but I like the idea of tying him to his celestial origins as Trigger that are still half a mystery.
Such is my running-joke with him. He is just... Volnutt (currently).
I AM SO HAPPY I GOT THEM OMG DUDE I WASN'T DELUSIONAL THIS WHOLE TIME SINCE SEASON 3 SPECIAL AND SEASON 4 SPECIAL WITH A SINGLE FRAME OF ALL 3 OF THEM!!!
This line is one of my Absolute Favorites from this show, because it really digs right into the new world that the kids are in:
They're not kids anymore.
There's a furious man threatening harm to Bumpy and her friends, and Sammy puts herself square in the middle of the argument, turns on the charm and promises that she'll make it up to him...and when he doesn't acquiesce, she immediately turns Stern. She bluntly tells him to go home. As an adult talking to another adult.
She has her own property. Her own life. Her own world. She has authority now. The days where they're kids hiding from robots or businessmen or sneaking away from big game hunters and mercenaries are over. Sammy has land, she has responsibilities, and she's not backing down from them. Sammy Gutierrez is an adult woman, and she's going to act like one.
Can you guess how many fan child of smg34 being created in tik tok and tumblr?
There's like thousands of them-
(Man 3 and 4 are getting very busy lately in the igloo-)
I love SMG34 fan kids I think they're great, I do think they're all bestowed upon them through some kind of divine intervention though because you know they wouldn't stand for carrying a child, they'd abort that thing immediately.
hear me out: mc that is terminally ill but hasnt told anyone, and at one point they just start coughing blood and laughing when the brothers try to help them because they finally feel like they have control instead of the brothers (like replaced au one or just in general with the brothers being to obsessive)
Oh no..In that type of situation, Mc should pray that the brothers never find out about that terminal illness. They also better pray that if they die from that illness that they're going straight to heaven, otherwise that's just a life sentence with the brothers!
I mean, you don't think the evil ancients that were created ever since the creation of mankind don't know a thing about manipulating life itself? I mean, if Lucifer ever so wanted, he could take a living being and separate it from itself - skin from bone- atom by atom. He's done it before, multiple times.
I mean, haven't you heard of realilty flipping demons..? And the seven deadly sins are much higher than those demons, so imagine the possibilities..The only reason why they haven't completely broken your soul and rebuilt it by their will is because..Well, where's the fun in that? They love you for who you are!
So if Mc had a terminal illness, you better pray that it kills them fast or that the brothers don't notice. But I mean, with the pact marks littered all over your body, I think they already knew. At this point their just waiting for you to say something! (The only person who's suffering is yourself..So instead of throwing up and coughing blood, why don't you just ask them to fix it..?) Because at any time they think you're just at the grasp of death - your potential freedom - they could always just snag you back to life and into their arms. I mean, the absolute horror on your face from just tasting death to being brought back to life would be adorable!
Ahh.. Now thinking about it..Isn't it hopeless either way?
literally nobody asked for it, but here's my list of saltburn essays that i've slowly been drafting over the course of the last week which WILL be required reading for anybody trying to engage with me about this movie. my very personal saltburn 101 syllabus just dropped
A Wolf in Deer's Clothing: Saltburn's Attempt at Innocence
an examination of party costumes and our character's last attempts to masquerade as something they're not: felix—an angel, all-forgiving and all-knowing, something to be worshiped; and oliver—a prey animal, prey to class-divide, prey to saltburn, prey to felix.
thoughts about oliver specifically are loosely organized in my #bambi tag
A Midsummer Night's Mare: Farleigh Start as the Ultimate Victim of Saltburn
a farleigh character study, about the ways he was mistreated and manipulated at saltburn, about fighting to stay alive and the scars left behind by knowing when to give in
alternatively titled "QuickStart", may be adapted into a conclusive essay specifically focusing on oliver and farleigh's relationship
The Eye of the Beholder: On Saltburn's Voyeurism & Violence [working title]
how wealth and class pushes the catton's toward the volatile reality of being able to look, but not touch. on desire and the lack thereof, and portraying yourself as an object to be desired
may end up as two separate essays on wealth and aestheticism but i'm pushing toward a conclusive essay about the intersection of the two, which i feel is at the heart of saltburn
alternatively titled "Poor Man's Pudding: A Melvillian Approach to Saltburn's Class", again, may be adapted into it's own essay
Gender-Fluid: A Study in Sexuality and Saltburn's Desire to be Dry
a deep dive into the bodily fluids of saltburn and how oliver upsets the standard of men who are just so lovely and dry. on the creative choice to lean into the messy wetness of sex and desire and the audience's instinct toward repulsion
a celebration of the grotesque and an examination of why we would label it as such
least developed of the four, heavily inspired by @charnelpit's lovely post about the fluids in saltburn
if anybody is actually interested in any of these, i can work toward something closer to a finished piece instead of just bullet points and quotes in a google doc, but mostly this is so i can share my very brief takes on a multitude of themes in saltburn that have been haunting me
edit for people seeing this in the future: all posts about my essays are being organized into my #saltburn 101 tag if you’re interested in following these through to development!
When you stumble upon old photos from high school and you get that weird feeling that this was simultaneously just last week and an entirely different life, you know what i mean? It feels so close and at the same time so far away from your current life...
Nirei and Sakura are NOT beating the "unconditionally in love" allegations. In fact, they're just proving to be in love over and over again with each chapter