#fucking LINES I LOVE THEM

[thresholdbb]

I like that they're not together in canon, ok? I LIKE IT

[giantkillerjack]

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.

[petricorah]

scenes i loved from Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka <333 [ids in alt]

[ech-e-sketch]

Chaos trio, they’re so ridiculous

[real-skel]

I know I draw them being gay and playing tongue guitar all the time but let’s be real they were not always like that

[sonic-adventure-3]

a murder to solve, espio’s verses delight, haiku answer all

[box-dwelling]

A thing I've never heard talked about but is so down right poetic as a wyllstarion concept is that the park right outside Cazadors was the one Wyll played in pretending to kill monsters when he was a kid...

[prickly-paprikash]

My favorite thing about every single Belmont in Netflix's Castlevania and Nocturne?

Every single initial appearance radiates sad, pathetic energy.

Trevor's bar fight scene was equal parts hilarious and disheartening. This is the Last Belmont? A legendary clan of Vampire Hunters, reduced to a drunken brawler who gets his nuts kicked in so many times?

Julia Belmont? Bodied by hot, gay Dragon Daddy Olrox while her son watches. He brings the direct Belmont line down to two, and traumatizes the kid so hard he has ED—Enchantment Dysfunction until he becomes an adult.

Richter? Yeah! Literally has to have his first true core memory be his mom be fucking owned by the sexiest god damn bloodsucker in history. Little bro's canon event was to watch his mama be crushed.

Juste? Sure his entrance is cool, but then we realize he's also suffering from ED, he sucks at this whole grandfather thing, his wife and bestie killed, and he could never even confront his own blood over the death of his fucking daughter.

I love the fact that every single Belmont makes the worst first impressions. Regardless of sex or gender or age. They just fucking suck when introduced.

[thedragonagelesbian]

say more oh please please PLEASE say more davrin what does sacredness mean to you, what does it mean for you to understand your obligations as a grey warden through the prism of dalish faith, do you pray to andruil to guide your blade as you hunt these monsters down, to elgar'nan to scorch the blight from this world and to mythal to protect its victims, talk to me about the holiness of duty and sacrifice and and and and-----

[deoidesign]

someone asked me what if adam and steve switched vampire and werewolf...

And then since my monsters are purposefully not much visually different because of metaphors, I went more traditional vampire and werewolf...

and then I got carried away...

[earlgodwin]

(If Cesare is dissatisfied that Micheletto isn't his brother instead of Juan) "Not exactly, because Cesare and Micheletto's relationship is more or less secret, hidden. They don't know too much about each other. Well, Micheletto has absolutely no grasp of what the rest of Cesare's life is, and Cesare is very respectful of Micheletto being so secretive about himself, and I don't think he really wants to know. It's not really a friendship, because there is an idea of hierarchy, but it's not master and slave, either. It's not boss and employee. It's something very complex. It's not equal, but there is a lot of trust. While with Juan, I think it all comes from a very deep place. His brother faces different struggles and is very naive, so Cesare pushes him by teaching him lessons. He also understands how hard it must be to do that, or at least he had good intentions towards him in the beginning, with some sort of really loving brotherly undertone under all of this hard teaching." — François Arnaud

[front-facing-pokemon]

[kristalijah]

HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!! I REPEAT, HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!!

[wintersoldier2005]

sorry but the idea of bruce being dick's father in his mid 20s. he's always a little tired but otherwise he's young and looks it too. he can pick dick up with one hand to put him on his shoulders. he doesn't know jack about taking care of kids. they play a game that they both love where bruce picks him up and just like... throws him off of the spiraling staircase to watch how he catches himself in the air and lands unharmed. they play soccer together in the backyard and bruce is so young and spry and he can do a bicycle kick (dick goes to school and tells everyone that bruce can do a bicycle kick. not to flex but he's really cool guys.) he lets dick make dino nuggets as their dinner three nights in a row when alfred is gone and they make a stupid big everything but the kitchen sink sundae and split it afterwards. kid you're killing me, he says, because he has a sweet tooth that alfred doesn't enable. maybe sometimes they argue and argue bad, especially as dick grows up, but at the end of the day that's his dad.

one day like ten fifteen years later when damian is young dick looks at bruce and all the sudden what happened.... his dad has crow's feet and his hair is graying a little...! that sort of tiredness that people get as they age! he's still strong he's the fucking batman but when damian wants to play a game (being hurled off the balcony into the pool) bruce looks at dick and smiles and he's got lines on his face. he's aging. and that's still bruce but he doesn't laugh with his head thrown back anymore and he doesn't style his hair the way he used to when he was in his 20s and he's stopped wearing the loose button ups with the first button undone he wore when he picked him up from school in the convertible. his dad is getting older and even bruce wayne can't escape the passage of time. he tells damian no being thrown off the roof. damian protests. but grayson says you used to throw him off the staircase when he was my age. bruce throws his hands up and turns away and gives dick a look before he goes that tells him he'll be in his office and if there happens to be a loud splash from the pool... well that's none of his business is it.

[whump-in-the-closet]

i love love love when whumpees curse out their whumper. blood trickling out with their words, teeth bared and every sound vicious. and when the whumper replies by leaning in with the smallest of smiles and strokes their face. “careful.”

and whumpee whimpers. shrinking back, the bite in their eyes fading into terror. crying, shaking, pleading.

[luminousstardust]