I think a big problem is that people should be having children.
Okay fair that's clickbait. Not literally. I love bc and abortion and choice. If you want to be childless that's fantastic. Full support.
But children:
a) take up a lot of your time and mental energy
b) are an act of hope and trust in the future even if that future isn't readily apparent or understandable to you
c) are a lot of fun and keep you seeing the world in new and fascinating ways
And I honestly think a big issue is that a lot of people are stuck seeing the world as something horrible and boring and not worth fighting for and they are stuck with a myopic, siloed vision of reality. Children completely upend that. You truly cannot think the world is 'futureless' when you have kids. You just can't.
And again, literal children are not the answer. But a fully consuming hobby that you treat with the same intensity and love as you would your own child is. Getting obsessed with gardening fulfills all of those briefs. Getting obsessed with baking, sewing, carpentry, rpgs, running, hiking, dance, activism etc all do the same thing. They take up your time, they give you hope and something to work towards, and they force you to see a richer more beautiful world.
Most consuming hobbies ask the same thing of you as kids: waking up early, physical and emotional discomfort, learning at a breakneck pace, a community you might not entirely get along with but need to rely on anyway, a kind of fulfilling, radical, self-actualizing love for the world, gross practicalities of life like poop and death up front, intergenerational knowledge, and access to more energy than you ever thought possible.
The issue isn't that people aren't having children. It's that people, humans, are supposed to be actively learning and growing in partnership with each other. We used to all have kids and that was a common thread. And thankfully we have a choice on that issue. But we are still human and we still need something to occupy our time. The more we remove ourselves from community, creation, and hope the bleaker the world seems.
But it's really beautiful out there. I promise you.
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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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7 yrs ago it was all a dream, but this yr marks my 5th year of being a pixel artist who supports themselves 100% thru art. kinda crazy to see my dreams to fruition!
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realizing thistle never actually reached the maturation point for an elf is so. eye opening. especially bc he actually witnessed both delgal's birth and the birth of delgal's son (AND HIS GRANDSON!!). as a human reader it's so easy to be lulled into thinking he's so old and marcille's remark of him being a child came so fast it's so easily forgotten
like i definitely think the golden kingdom and delgal himself never knew let alone be able to perceive thistle as an immature person. bc in their years he's just so old. and i think growing up surrounded with all tallmen also gave thistle false perceptions of how mature he was and it played a part in him taking on the responsibility of rejecting death for the whole kingdom. it's a brilliant and raw display of what age discrepancy actually means in the world of dungeon meshi
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Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !
Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)
I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!
someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)
uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE
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Imagine Annabeth and Percy have a kid early, unplanned and it kinda fucks with their finances so Percy drops out of school to get a job so he can care for the kid and support Annabeth in school. At first he gets a job teaching kids sword fighting but then he hears about underwater welding which pays well because it’s dangerous but Percy is a child of the sea so it’s much less so for him. His boss is even willing to give him flexible hours which means Annabeth doesn’t have to take their kid to class anymore and they can actually afford daycare (why does is it the price of a mortgage nowadays???). A huge financial burden is lifted and Percy doesn’t mind the work so it’s good all the way around.
Fast forward to when Annabeth is done her masters in architecture and lands a job at a top firm. They’ve got savings and have Annabeth’s income to rely on. Percy heads back to school and finishes a degree in marine biology, going on to research some really niche topics like how underwater welding impacts the environment and shifting from there until he’s a well known expert in the field.
Just them finding their way. Supporting each other and landing on their feet no matter what
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