#and not be infantile

[marsabillions]

all of you who headcanon pandora to apparently be like 8 years old mentally are some of the most annoying mfers on this side of the fandom. learn how to write women, weirdo

[prole-log]

[uncanny-tranny]

[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.

[mari-lair]

help them

[stealingyourbones]

I’m not too big a fan of de aging fics (just a personal preference), but the ones I always adore are the fics where the de aged person still knows everything from before they were de-aged and act like a child genius.

With that in mind: Danny gets de-aged in Gotham. With no other way around it, he has to be put back into elementary school and VERY rapidly skips classes because he still remembers everything. In his woodworking class he builds a miniature scale fully functioning mech that could be used to fight Gotham Rogues.

Bruce very quickly notices this kids very apparent smarts. With the rate of smart young children becoming rogues, he gives Danny as many Wayne scholarly grants as he can to encourage non villainous behavior.

[sentientsky]

crowley and aziraphale negotiating child support payments in s3

[non-stick-pansexual]

If your trans activism ignores, excludes, infantilizes, or actively targets trans men and transmasculine folks, you need to re-evaluate your activism and your stance as a trans ally.

You do NOT get to ignore and exclude trans men just “because they are men”, that’s antithetical to trans activism and actively harms the community as a whole. As a trans community, and as a greater queer community, we need to do better.

[sevenhundred721]

Guys it was one person saying this. This post has significantly more interactions than theirs did. This is neither a widespread opinion nor something that matters. We can stop now. Go get mad about something that matters.

GIF unrelated I just want to look at them.

[butcharium]

I often do think it is important to call myself a woman. In past I've had kids ask me "are you a man or a girl" and in hindsight I think these kids were quite perceptive of the world. Especially when you're in your 20s it's men and girls, I've seen students write pieces describing themselves as men, but their female peers of the same age they call girls, but I have also heard bisexual women say they like both men and girls. In past I've fallen into that myself and said that yeah I'm a lesbian I like girls, but do I? No I am in my twenties and I am actually only attracted to my fellow adults - women. It does feel more serious, less trivial, both to be and be attracted to women as opposed to girls, and that can be a bit uncomfortable to be faced with. It is also important to me as a butch. I am no longer a tomboy I am a butch I am no longer a girl I am a woman. I am a woman and women can be like me. I don't feel like I've succeeded enough at adulting to call myself a woman, but that doesn't matter. I am 25, and if the word bears other connotations so be it, that's not my problem.

[mourning-at-night]

jace i don’t feel good was so funny but also made me so sad. like that’s a teenager with a strawberry squishmallow keychain and a tamagotchi and she doesn’t feel good and she's tugging on a teacher’s sleeve about it. a teacher who should have been responsible for protecting her in the first place and didn’t. who is manipulating and using her and her friends to help fulfill the desires of a wrathful power-hungry egomaniac. porter and jace it’s on sight >:(

[commonboa]

yknow in another life i think i could have genuinely like the term tboy for myself but ive seen too many people use it to mean "trans men i think are annoying white teenage girls"

[sixteenthtry]

*Sigh* this asshole's stupid sweet apple pie face

[ruestheday]

CASSANDRA CAIN IS THE SECOND OLDEST CHILD. SHE WAS BORN SIX MONTHS BEFORE JASON TODD. SHE DOESN’T EVEN MEET BRUCE UNTIL SHES SEVENTEEN. SHE’S GENERALLY AN ADULT IN THE COMICS.

[direquail]

I don’t think people give enough weight to the fact that Nona is chronically-to-terminally ill in NtN, either—the reason she needs help taking care of herself, by the end of the book, is because her soul is eating her body and her body is dying. Every time she has a “tantrum”, or accesses Alecto, she uses up Harrow’s body in huge gulps—that’s why she gets sick or passes out after them. She spends most of her time in the early book thinking wistfully about how lucky she is to just have what she has and how much she wants to be useful and it’s a meditation on her awareness of her own death. Like.

Yeah, of course she needs other people to help her take care of herself. She’s disabled and actively dying.

[wombpala]

yeah to me it feels like the popular idea that John was homophobic/beat his kid(s)/taught them that having emotion makes you weak is just ppl choosing to interpret 'abusive father' in the shallowest most black-and-white movie villain way possible. when the ways he fucks them up in canon are so much more interesting and complicated.