#today will be great

[cupc4ke88]

Remember to Live

[kiuda]

today will be great 🥳

[pisupsala]

The downside of mostly sleeping through the past two days is that I was wide awake until 4 am.

Good news? I came up with a whole ass new Bradley fic.

Bad news? I’m going to go the office on 3 hours of sleep:

hello, I’m here to onboard you

[softwaring]

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼hope he dies painfully and slowly!

[zhxngii]

noted for now i can't use new tags or else tumblr wants to get me

[kestrellady]

All things considered, this isn't a terrible day to be reading the end of Dracula. A story of a group of people banding together to defeat a great evil, motivated by their love for each other and their will to protect the most vulnerable among them. The victory doesn't come without sacrifice and heartbreak, but it does come. And life continues afterward.

[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.

[parisoonic]

You’ll get what you're given.

[charbies]

linktober day 14 - fairy

[soupwife]

now its time to bring the haterism

if you think multiple are bad vote for the one you hate the most <3

[jellinuy]

trapezing the line between a good nap and staying awake, laid atop your boyfriend's chest, curled up in his t-shirt with droopy eyes — that was your picture-perfect setting. it's late afternoon, the blue of the sky bleeding into pink and orange giving the living room that oddly-nostalgic ‘early evening’ glow. satoru, pretty ocean eyes focused on the top of your head and the visibility of drool through your slightly-parted lips, rambles on about something — or maybe it's nothing; he loves to hear himself talk. your body is too lead-heavy to care, anyway.

“…’nd you're so pretty," he murmurs against your hair, voice fuzzy, soft kisses punctuating just how much his sweet nothings really meant something. “i don't mean jus’… pretty, i mean like out-of-this-world, baby.” another kiss. “every star in the world could come out all at once” — another kiss — “and none'd be half as gorgeous, 'm so serious.”

he'd only really soften like this when you were asleep and he was sure you couldn't hear him.

“how’d a bastard like me end up with an angel like you, huh?”

satoru would tell you all the things he normally couldn't say when you were conscious — at least, not without hiding it behind some stupid joke or unserious comment or goofy smile.

“i’m so shitty at playin’ it cool,” he chuckled, fingers slipping under your back, tracing his love for you into the skin curled around your spine. “i dunno how you haven’t caught on yet, pretty girl. i’m a fuckin’ mess when it comes to you.”

these were things he could say raw and unfiltered and without having to worry about defacing them with humor and brushing it under the rug. it was easier to tell you while you were asleep. you couldn’t proved he’d ever waxed poetic to you, because, 1.) nobody would ever believe you, and 2.) he’d just blame it on your grogginess and never bring it up again.

you stir at the familiar tingles that shoot up your vertebrae, lashes still resting against the sun-coated apples of your cheeks when you hum, “mm?” so sweetly, because you thought you’d heard him say something. satoru’s body melts into a puddle: “nothin’, baby.” lithe, gentle fingers swirl from your spine, back over your shirt, and across your scalp to lull you back into your nap, hoping you couldn't hear the bass drum that had replaced his heart when you'd woken up.

he kissed your head. drank you in in a way he could never even verbalize if he tried. “nothing,” he repeated. another kiss. “go back to sleep.”

[cupc4ke88]

🎃Hello October🎃

[atthebell]

awwwww phil

[hansoeii]

need some help with that?

[blakbonnet]

as an indian person, my favourite thing is seeing what people who aren't from here have done with my food; i'll go to an indian restaurant in a random corner of the world and they're putting oregano in their palak paneer or a balsamic wash on their naan and it's like "yes good tell me how you folded your culture into mine and came out with something new and lovely, we're holding hands across oceans bestie"

[spilledte]

It's Ryutaro Naruhodou's arrival and departure today~

A Technical Happy Birthday to the gallant rural boy 💜