#oppositions-in-life

[thepersonalwords]

To lose a problem, do not oppose, let go of any need to control, perhaps it's all an illusion we project, more like a game we play than real?

Jay Woodman

[eydilily]

gem n joel the strongest duo (family) that you are

and of course. her

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Ship trope I'd love to see more of: "Are we in love? I mean, yeah, probably, but that's a problem for future us. Right now we're just trying to make it through the Plot."

[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.

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[radishearts]

Girls who don’t draw for like a week and have to relearn their artstyle it’s me Im girls this happens every few months 😔🙏

Anyways EVO/lifers crew bc I love them and. And. I watched Solarocks ‘Watcher, Tell me So I say.’ PMV (DEF RECCO. REALLY COOL).

[tpwrtrmnky]

vexillology

[ID: Three panel "Pills that make you green" comic.

Panel 1: An ochre person with a triangle-shaped body is standing on a stage in front of a curtain.

Ochre: Hey everyone and thanks for showing up today. As you're all probably familiar there's been a lot of discussion about the green pride flag, and how lots of people in the community aren't really represented by it. And while there are a lot of flags for subcommunities we're really missing a unifying one

Panel 2: Ochre person pulls away the curtain, revealing literally just the regular real life Pride flag to the crowd of a variety of people with a skew towards a greenish majority

Ochre: So I'm going to suggest we use this rainbow flag, as a symbolic representation of the full color spectrum

Panel 3: Zoom in on the ochre person looking vaguely dejected, saying "oh..." as criticisms come in from the crowd:

"I feel that this does a poor job representing mauve people"

"Get better at vexilology" [sic]

"That looks so weird"

"There's barely even any of the original green flag left!"

"Way too complicated"

"Orange people don't even have anything to do with green rights"

"What's next, charred brown with lava cracks in it for refugees from Former Italy?"

End ID]

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[lastoneout]

I do actually think one of the big issues with radical feminism is that if you can convince yourself that one single group of people is born with evil baked into their DNA you can eventually be made to believe that of more people who have far less privilege and protection. Which is like a huge radfem recruitment method ofc first they get you to believe men suck and then it's asexuals and aromantics and then bisexuals in m/f relationships and then bisexuals in general and then pansexuals and polyam people and then gnc men and intersex people(who are somehow all considered men) then "cringe" trans people and then all trans people.

This is also my beef with people who act like having a personality disorder like npd or aspd makes you inherently a bad person or take astrology so seriously they believe being born under the wrong stars makes you untrustworthy, like any ideology that seriously bases it's core beliefs on the idea that a human can be born in such a way that makes them inherently a bad person and there is simply nothing to be done to change this is one you should run the fuck away from. Even if the people they are attacking are men, honestly fuck it especially if the people they target are men, because it's clearly so fucking easy to sell women and queer people on that bullshit and legit once you believe one group is malicious and oppressive by birth it's SO easy to get you to believe it about other groups too.

Honestly I genuinely think a lot of people who buy into this straight up don't believe humans have free will and it's super fucking weird. Anyone can decide to be evil and anyone can decide to be good. It's a decision, and sometimes the scales are weighted against you for any number of reasons, but the way you were born is NEVER one of them.

[jjkyaoi]

jegulus work so well together because they are both people who fundamentally can’t do anything casual, that love so deeply that once they get into a relationship it’s some to death do us part shit and NOTHING else. match my freak? girl match my devotion

[pa-pa-plasma]

love fics where Danny ends up in the DC universe & every alarm goes off at once & the magic users are like "yeah that's the most powerful being in the universe & also possibly super evil we are FUCKED fucked" & the Justice League is freaking tf out trying to find this thing that casually tore a hole in reality & it just cuts to Danny (Fenton) standing in the background blissfully unaware & like "man my life sucks but at least i have this candy bar—" *drops it in a puddle*

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

happy pride month

[justl-12]

Never knew i needed a pearl and lizzie duo until now

I hope there will be more of these two

[stealingpotatoes]

Luke: I must fight Vader alone and redeem him.

Ahsoka: yeah kinda tried that kid but ok

i know this is a reference to the tl4j ot au, but do you ever think about how Ahsoka feels knowing that she -- Anakin's padawan and pseudo-sister who fought alongside him for years and was one of the people -- failed to get through to him? not even failed, she DIED in one timeline. but luke got through to him, luke brought him back to the light and anivader didn't kill luke, he saved him. he and luke barely ever met and were always enemies but he got through to anakin. do you think ahsoka feels jealous? or do you think she wants to feel jealous but every time she looks at him all she can see are the best bits of his parents and how can she POSSIBLY feel anything but love for him?

[technically-human]

can chris and jiro meet crystal and niko now ^w^

Reactions to meeting yourself from another universe may vary

ko-fi

[olasketches]

two sides of the same coin

[bogdreamz]

korvo lost and farting 0 stars for you my boy