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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Do you ever think about Minoris reaction to being freed from the possession because I do a lot. Like. Imagine you were used as a puppet to torment this incredibly kind and patient boy, who didn't do anything to you except be too odd and off-putting. Imagine you said so many horrible things to him and made school unbearable. Imagine you tormented him until he finally snapped and then he saves your life. After you made his life a living hell, he just...saves you anyway. And he looks at you with big, disappointed eyes and asks you if you actually treat people like that. If you would actually make someone's life a living hell or if that was just Mogami rewriting your personality to suit his needs. And you could lie. You want to lie. But you don't. You are like that. You have done it, multiple times, too many times. You've berated and harassed people who've done nothing but been too weird, too annoying, just existed wrong around you. And you have no excuse. They didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. And what are you supposed to say? "You didn't deserve it" what does that even do? What would make what you did hurt less? What would make up for all the horrible things you told him? What can you possibly say to make up for it? Would you even have said sorry if he HADNT saved you? Do you even know?
And then he just tells you to change. You both know sorry isn't enough. Sorry will never be enough. There is nothing you can do to take it back. You just have to be better. And you have no idea where to start. You have no idea what being a good person even means. And you have to live with knowing somewhere out there there's a complete stranger who will always remember how you treated him, and who decided you deserved to live anyways. And you have no idea why.
So anyways how's your day going.
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I love that kaz's revenge kind of... fails. I really love that he doesn't quite get a satisfying revenge on rollins, and I've always thought that was... well, the point. I said more about the specific scene with pekka here but like. it IS a turning point for kaz, it's just not the one he wanted. kaz gets about three narrative warnings/pieces of foreshadowing that it's not going to go how he wants it to go, but he really doesn't heed them until it's too late.
the first is the broken leg from the heist on the bank that helped pekka scam them; while its main narrative purpose is that it's the source of kaz's disability ofc (which feeds into his personal arc and his dynamic with wylan), and it exists outside of the pekka stuff, it arguably has a secondary purpose as the first in a series of 'don't pursue this, it's going to hurt' warnings, which he ignores.
the second warning comes when kaz lets pekka out at hellgate for personal score settling reasons, wastes time and fucks up the plan, and then starts a big domino effect where rollins turns the dregs on him, teams up with van eck, and hires dunyasha to attack inej.
(there are lots of other mini-nods to kaz absolutely refusing to let go of what happened and it informing everything he does; making nina give muzzen fake firepox, the fake pandemic, his interest in fifth harbour being implied to be because that's where he crawled out of the harbour, his dynamics with jesper and wylan, the body boats taking everyone out of the city, etc, but these are the big slip-ups)
the third strike feeds from that; the sweet reef sugar silo job is an almost perfect copy of the second stage of rollins' scam on jordie and kaz; sugar stock prices being driven up due to scarcity. it going so horribly wrong (because pekka anticipated it, of course he did, he made it up) and almost getting inej killed by dunyasha is a final warning to kaz to, effectively, let go or be dragged. if he carries on living in the past like this, he's going to lose his new family, not just his old one.
I think pekka's inability to remember jordie's name was more crushing than kaz admitted to himself, at least on the page; "it was a start" feels almost defeated after all that, and it lacks closure. kaz only gets one more point of view chapter (iirc?) one which feels quite reticent (it's the council of tides one and it's quite short) and he's quite quiet for the rest of the book, at least until the last inej chapter. he gets probably the cruellest wake-up call he could have been given. he doesn't get what he wants, and he'll never get it, because rollins still can't remember jordie's name by the end of the novel. it's time to move on. to his credit, he does it; he does what he always does, which is rise to a challenge. half of kaz's appeal lies in his ability to do that, no matter how hard the task, but it's a hard bandage to rip off.
unfortunately he does not really let go until he's being dragged, when his idea of what his confrontation with pekka should be like, crumbles in the face of pekka just not being able to remember jordie's name, no matter what kaz does. kaz is dragged to the precipice and told, look– here's inej, here's rollins. choose. and that's when he finally has to let go and start doing things for the future and inej, not the past and rollins and jordie. (remember that bit when he's drowning in SOC and he tries to think of revenge, and he can only think of inej instead? he always knew what he was going to pick, really).
he gets rollins out of ketterdam, but it's definitely hollow, in my estimation; the one thing kaz wanted him to remember, and he couldn't, because it wasn't important to him like it was to kaz. there's one final nod to kaz making everything about what happened to him and jordie (sneaking the grisha, colm, and matthias' body out of the city via the bodyboats and 'the bodymen don't bother to rearrange them') but I think inej saying "he doesn't say goodbye. he just lets go" comes at the perfect point; up until then it wasn't true, but now, kaz has finally been forced to (somewhat) let go, having never ever done that before.
but kaz buying inej her ship and a berth at fifth harbour (where he crawled out of the harbour and vowed to start the entire revenge plot) is a nice indication that he is trying to close that part off and move forwards with her, rather than staying in the past. and I really like that it's inej who actually makes the threat against pekka's life, to make sure he stays out of ketterdam; it's hard to know if kaz told her anything that prompted that visit (if he did, I doubt it was much, and I actually suspect he didn't know she'd gone there at all) but no matter what the circumstances, it indicates that he doesn't have to go on alone anymore, and he can finally turn away from that obsession. shared burdens n that. it's not a sad ending, it's honestly a good one for both of them, but it was a pretty rough journey to get there, and he had to fail first.
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so with echoes of wisdom .. i havent watched any of the trailers beyond the very first one and the thumbnails/screenshots and what others have said about it-
but with the world inside the rift being called "Welt des Nichts" aka "world of nothing/void" in german ('still' in english, for some reason) and demises title in french being "avatar of nothing" ... yeah my anxiety is shooting through the roof again
(hopefully you can be a little more forgiving for me being anxious/weird about it bc demise is my blorbo)
i had similar worries with totk, that werent proven true thankfully, but the darn book is making it all worse again with all those weird lore things the game doesnt even so much as hint at AND potential retcons- im in for a really rough time huh, not just stress in real life (more in tags.. its alot) but now about my specific hyperfixation from two things even (AND artblock still..)
weird as it may sound, i dont want demise to get more lore, partly bc i dont believe theyd do anything with him that i would like (given their track record) but much more importantly- the fact that he has this little lore about him is precisely one of the reasons why i fell in love with him, i tend to like characters that are neglected by the narrative, and his story being both so flat and already done meant i can be very creative with what i come up with for him without necessarily contradicting anything in canon
(which is ... or was a big point of how i wrote destiny's story and lore, working with canon in a way that reframes it all without straight up ignoring it ... but i suppose i urgently need to let go of that and accept i spend alot of time working things that will go to waste :( )
AND not having to worry that there will be more stuff with him that would massively change not only what im writing but also potentially how i feel about him since the game he was briefly in was the oldest chronologically and ended with his death- i didnt expect them to mess with anything that far back and thought theyd just go forward and leave the timeline behind and wouldnt mess with it again, given how botw seemed to be a sort of 'fresh start' that seemingly regarded the past as the past that needs to rest and that the timeline was finally no longer a discussion if everythings unified through botw and one thing going forward
but i suppose i was very wrong with that .__.
right now the only thing that motivates me still is the left over determination and spite to work on my zelda comic, since i have never gotten this far and really want to get something done for once, but i cant lie that im feeling like i should pause all work on it too to wait and see waht the book and the new game will do .. either to determine if i still have the will to keep working on it after those things are out (my love for tloz has been taking alot of hits lately ..) or if i have to change stuff (mostly bc of my lore problem trying to not ignore it ..)
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Ghost gifts a single tiny ear loop to Soap one day. Says he noticed Soap had pierced ears. That rings keep from handling a gun or a knife properly. He doesn't make eye contact, tries to hide his face, even as he's already wearing his balaclava.
Soap blinks. Ghost has already given him gifts and only behaved that way for the very first one. He doesn't understand. The earring is very simple, but seems to be made of expensive material and not only covered with a thin leaf of gold.
"Didnae it come with another one?" he says, jokingly.
But Ghost flushes, turns his head, and lifts his mask, only enough for Soap to see the glinting of the other earring on his ear. Suddenly he understands that it's not simply a gift. Ghost favoured practicality, but he wanted to give him a ring.
He grabs his hand as it falls back down.
"Simon, what is this?" he asks softly, not daring to be hopeful just yet.
With his other hand, he reaches out to gently turn Simon's head back towards him. His cheeks and his nose are flushed, it makes the warmth of his dark eyes, generally hidden behind a sneer or a bored expression, undeniable.
He looks nervous. Johnny's heart is beating faster. Could it really be...?
"I know", Simon starts then pauses, uncertain. "I know I'm probably not what you thought you'd have, when you were younger" Soap wants to interrupt, to scoff, to protest that Simon is way better than anyone he could have hoped for, but doesn't. He never wants to cut off his love when he's barely starting to open up.
"I know that I'm not easy to be with some days, that I'm not friendly and easy going like you, like someone you'd deserved to be with." he continues, unconsciously pushing his face more into Soap's hand. "But... I love you, more than I thought I could, and I'd like... I'd like to be with you, for as long as you'd have me..."
Johnny's heart is soaring. He has no idea how to react. He'd have to get all the giddiness out first, and the moment doesn't seem appropriate for jumping around and squealing.
"Officially," Simon continues, voice quieter, out of breath. "If you want to."
A gigantic grin splits Johnny's face. All of his limbs are buzzing, he needs to stand up, to run, to explode something. But he's terrified to spook Simon so instead he just squeezes the hand he's holding rhythmically and moves his feet back and forth.
"Baby, are ye asking me tae marry ye?" Johnny says. He's pretty sure his voice is wobbly, but can't really hear it himself as the blood in his ears is louder than the rest.
Simon's eyes do something, what is visible of his face looks like he has an expression on but Johnny can't analyze it now, doesn't dare to see the hope in his eyes, the pleading in his brows.
"I... Yes, I guess I am," the love of his life says finally. "If you want to. You don't have to."
Soap can't keep himself in check any longer. He's making a high pitched noise, jumping up and down where he's seating on the bed, and throws himself at Simon.
"Of course ah fooking want tae!!!"
Simon lets out an excited giggle, swept in Johnny's mood, and tightens his arms around his lover. No, his fiancé.
This is the best day of his life. He just has to deal with this mission tomorrow, and then they can start to plan everything.
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