#you can do better.
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I'm sure many people have already shared this here, but I think it's important that people here on Tumblr need to see this.
"I disagree with Kamala's position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?" by US Senator Bernie Sanders
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#us politics#kamala harris#donald trump#bernie sanders#Palestine#please do what you can ro make things better#you can't always make things perfect immediately#but you can always make things better#don't waste what may be your only opportunity#Youtube
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bad dating stories time: the shoe incident
so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.
at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.
he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?
and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.
but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.
i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?
(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)
and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.
i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.
that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.
i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.
anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.
i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.
we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.
he was okay at it.
eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.
soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.
realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:
"i can't get pregnant"
which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.
still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"
and then i was in my car, and i drove away.
if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.
and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.
WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.
we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.
do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.
and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.
then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.
and then they started making out.
i was close enough to hear it.
i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.
so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.
now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.
so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.
about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.
my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.
my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.
they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?
and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.
#dating stories#anecdotes#long post#funny story#babylon#im really bad at dating#like i can do a lot better than this but also it just was kind of a nightmare for me#shit like this did make the whole thing easier tho#like#every date after this i could go you know ive seen how bad it can get#and i lived#didnt even get shot#writing
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mentor
#my art#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jjk fanart#jujutsu kaisen fanart#gojo satoru#megumi fushiguro#jjk art#jjk spoilers#jjk manga spoilers#jjk leaks#pulled another allnighter fr Angst's sake cries i havent slept.......but i couldnt help myself i was out all DAY i hadnt drawn all DAY#do u know what that does to a mf i felt all antsy and Wrong#so i cracked an energy drink i think i may have a problem honestly but hey at least u get ur daily dose of megumi angst#remember how i said i considered including gojo in the yuuji/tsumiki/megu squared train piece#well this is me making up fr Not including him there#i ws right his and megumi's relationship deserves its own homage smile :)#anyway @ anon who wanted a gojo/megumi hug.....ik it's not exactly a hug but you can forgive me im sure <3#dare i say it's better than hugs jeremy.....#honestly fr all my gripes w gojo i Did get kind of emo abt this?? but i feel like. the majority of my emotions r on megumi's behalf#also might have been the mukashi mukashi no kyou no boku on repeat that'll also do it#seriously debated putting translated lyrics as the caption but it feels like a copout doing 2 lyric-captions in a row#also i do have some shame. miku lyrics r a bit.#anyway art notes uhhhhh finally got gojo's hair to not look Yuuji#who knew the trick was to make it longer smh maybe sleep deprivation n 10 hours of staring at a screen Does make simple problems hard#oh file name 'proud of you' btw
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just how long is forever? // not long enough, with you
pssst. check this out on inprnt :]
#pssst also. you should click/zoom on this. for better quality and to see all my silly little details :] hooty hoo#this is my totkversary thing im just too impatient to wait till the 12th LOL. big shoutout to this game tht has ruined my life. and zelink.#zelink#light dragon#link#zelda#loz#totk#princess zelda#totk spoilers#link totk#zelda totk#tears of the kingdom#loz fanart#i had soooo much fun drawing this i really did. i think this is a good capstone piece for how much ive improved so far this year#i still have a long ways to go ofc but. i am pleased ^_^ nd i am glad i can use zink like experiments to do so hehe#anyway. YURI FOREVERRRRR BITCH#my art
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my top bit of advice going into the new year: compliment people. especially strangers. literally everyone you interact with if you can. when you buy coffee in the morning compliment the barista's tattoos. when you're chatting with a coworker tell them that by the way you like their outfit. always find something they've chosen to do on purpose. nail polish, jewellery, tattoos, hair colour/style, statement accessory, outfit, etc are all good bets. things people hope will be noticed. things that aren't too personal so it doesn't make them uncomfortable (eg probably not their physical features). i've gotten into the habit of scanning everyone i talk to for something about them that i think is cool so i can tell them. it's a great habit because it makes me notice people and realise just how many neat little details there are in people's presentation of themselves that might pass me by if i wasn't paying attention. and it brings out so much joy. you'd be surprised how much it disarms people to receive an unexpected compliment from someone they don't know. it is the most sincere smile you will see all day long. it feels nice to make people happy but it also means you win the social interaction. establish dominance by complimenting a stranger's earrings and disappearing into the fog
#rookposting#the little 'oh!' followed by a big grin is now my highlight in every interaction i have with a stranger#you can always spot the things people hope will be noticed and you have no idea how happy it makes people when it gets noticed#i find it's always better to compliment things they did deliberately vs complimenting stuff like their voice or their face or other things#that are inherent or they cant change because that can make people uncomfortable for one thing to hear that from a stranger#but it's also just less meaningful imo because they didnt do that on purpose
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intimacy between an evil spiteful building-sized supercomputer and the lone scientist left behind after everyone else ditched and forgot about her (in which computer wants to kill scientist really bad but her programming wont let her so she just attempts to make her as miserable as possible instead, which also doesn't work because scientist is a freak)
#just some guys ive been tossing around in my brain#can you tell i like drawing wires.#art tag#oc tag#computer yuri#objectum#evil supercomputer#toxic yuri#cartoon violence#robots#my apologies to edgar. your bf isnt that terrible. you can do better tho#(hes from a movie called electric dreams i didnt make him)#edit got lightly scolded (rightfully!) for not taking the alt text seriously. genuinely uncool of me and it has been fixed. i hope
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Kim Kitsuragi is a fascinating character because there's not that much fun or interesting or compelling about him. And yet somehow over the course of playing Disco Elysium the game rewires your fucking brain around him. He's the middest man you've ever seen in both appearance and personality but at some point he says something kind to you or something critical of you and you feel like you just got hit by a truck and you need his approval like you need oxygen and like how tf did this happen. what are you
#disco elysium#de#kim kitsuragi#i have an interdisciplinary degree in game design and psychology and i'm still unsure how they pulled this off#my best guess is that the early game beats you over the head with how much you suck and everyone hates you#and this allows for any genuine praise from another character to feel massive#the fact that he doesn't take pity on you ever contributes to praise from him feeling earned. like you CAN get better#whereas pity from lena or judit#while comforting#doesn't do anything to alleviate how pathetic you feel
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(looks at upcoming card releases)
I'm in danger :)
#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#stage in playful land#stage in playfulland#smoking#my favorite horrible crime guys are back!!!!#(my hot take is that glomas had a better story but these goobers were just SO fun)#(they should be allowed to kidnap and murder(?) at least a few dozen people. as a treat.)#man i knew there was probably going to be a fellow card and yet i still did a bad job of saving my keys#and there's this year's halloween to think about too!#normally i try to avoid leaks and spoilers but i did accidentally see some stuff and if it's real then holy SHIT#on the other hand fellow attacks by basically throwing gidel at people and i desperately need this on my team#regardless of whether or not the card is actually any good#(if they change the animation to remove gidel i am going to RIOT it needs to be either exactly the same or EVEN SILLIER)#actually it would be hilarious if their stats were terrible. just the worst. and yet...#grown man and his kid with a hammer vs a bunch of teen wizards who can shoot fire#the results may shock you#(if they do the same duos-with-the-last-release as they have been with the staff cards then i will absolutely lose it)#(please twst. it would so useless to me but SO funny)#fellow: it's showtime rollo! :)#rollo: who are you
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hozier songs are all "i wouldn't be here without black artists" "you should kill your boss" "i love ireland :(" "DO Y OU NEED A DOG. I CAN BARK"
#the range is so funny to me genuinely. here's a song about black artists. here's a song about the war machine. here's a love song#intermixed with observations that Shits Bad Out There but i love you :'). wish i could hear my countries language spoken more often but#no! colonialism took that! hhhey babe can y ou pull my hair. you can do anything pleas e#i love you (we're better than god) i love you (*bass drum thumping* I GIVE HEAD)
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Soup solves everything.
#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi spoilers#Senshi#izutsumi#chilchuck tims#laios touden#marcille donato#THE SOUP CHAPTER HAS BEEN ANIMATED#I have so many thoughts about senshi's backstory and how much that experience has shaped who he is.#This is such a powerful moment because it makes it clear how *stuck* senshi has been because of his trauma.#Up until now he has been a mystery! He's the chef guy! Don't worry about his apparent reclusiveness from society!#Don't worry about his intense need to make sure 'the young ones are fed'!#Senshi still has a lot of healing but this was the moment he could finally forgive himself.#This chapter is so important to me because sometimes you truly do need to face the most terrifying things to move past them.#This joke here is a bit too narrow to be funny for the masses...but mdzs fans know.#MDZS :handshake: Dungeon Meshi: Soup moment.#Laios and Jiang Yanli have a powerful magic call "Eat some soup and maybe you'll feel better'#That is also a spell you can cast upon yourself. Go eat some soup and you will feel better. Merry Soupmas everyone.#One more week of Thistle Thursdays....I'm not ready to say goodbye B*(
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if your "original story/rpg" idea is rooted in the premise of "what if [existing franchise] was good?" then just start over. i am not kidding. your ego is like insulation spray foam being inserted into the cracks of the premise-- sure it fills the gaps, but it's beyond ugly and everyone can see it.
#former warcraft players are extremely guilty of this#i don't mean taking your old ocs and trying to translate them into a fresh setting btw this is Cool And Good#i mean a specific sense of spite for how someone else conveyed an idea#and insisting you can 'do better'#that's the devil talking
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Kamala Harris does want "transgender surgery on illegal aliens that are in prison", btw.
So since Trumpists are getting mad enough about the jokes to actually cite their sources, I thought I'd put the source out into my left extremist commie faggot echo chamber, too.
The claim originates from an ACLU questionnaire she filled out for her 2020 presidential candidacy, specifically this section:
She wasn't given a new questionnaire for 2024, and has stated that while her policy on some things may have changed, her values had not. (This most likely means she moved more to the center to appease larger demographics and cut corners to reach compromises. The basic politician stuff.)
It boils down to this: If you're in prison, whether for "illegal" immigration or other crimes, you rely on the state to provide you with necessary amenities, like food and health care. Her argument isn't "hell yeah everyone in prison should get sex changes for free". It's "gender affirming surgery is a necessary medical procedure. If you are in the states care while this becomes necessary, the state should provide it." If you're outraged by your tax money being used on this, consider the massive amount of people being incarcerated in for-profit prisons, on your dime. Then ask yourself if maybe a prison reform might be in order.
Worth noting: In 2015, while Attorney General, Kamala Harris actually argued against providing gender-affirming surgery to an incarcerated trans woman, claiming that HRT and psychotherapy were sufficiently covering her medical needs. She has since obviously changed her stance and assumed responsibility. (I would like to take this moment to remind my fellow left extremist commie faggots that "willingness to learn and rethink your views" is infinitely more valuable than "perfect from the start and unwilling to listen to anyone")
Also found in the source: This image of Kamala Harris participating in the 2019 San Francisco Pride Parade, wearing what I believe to be a sequin rainbow embroidered denim jacket.
I encourage you to read the provided CNN article and the answers to the ACLU questionnaire, as they give great insight into her values.
TLDR: Based.
#we dont have to get into the fact that most prisons fail to provide bare necessities to inmates because you make more money that way#thats not what the post is about#it is frankly baffling to me that the orange wet bag somehow referenced an actual policy stance#i wasnt aware he knew how to do that#fox news had covered it the morning of the debate so i guess thats how i found out about it#but i didnt know he knew how to read#transgender#transgender surgery on illegal aliens that are in prison#politics#us politics#kamala harris#election 2024#queer#trans#ramble#still think that one guy in my comments was a bot tho lmao#better a bot than this stupid#long post#go vote#vote blue#register to vote#vote so we can have transgender surgeries on illegal aliens that are in prison
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I have had these thoughts bubbling away in my head for like...eighteen months or so now (it will become very obvious why shortly) but the discussion in this post has pushed me to write them down: I think societally we HUGELY underestimate how motherhood for primary caregivers, particularly first-time motherhood, can be a source of vulnerability to radicalisation.
There is obviously huge cultural variance here, but for a lot of cis women becoming primary caregiver to an infant in a capitalist Western society represents a time of immense vulnerability because in general you are:
Incredibly sleep-deprived (which has well-documented knock-on effects for your judgement, mental health, etc)
If you gave birth, recovering from a significant challenge to your physical health (even in the best-case scenario)
Isolated from your previous networks and communities of people in full-time work
Completely separated from the context of your prior career goals and achievements
Under huge amounts of stress to learn how to care for an infant (don't get me started on breastfeeding)
And on top of this, you are also be experiencing a huge amount of messaging about how all this is natural, wonderful, something you're meant to do, something you should love doing, and something that you must do for the welfare of their child. It's a huge amount of pressure and life change even when everything goes right and there's very little cultural space to express negative feelings about it.
Any group of people who offer community, support, and affirmation to cis women in this situation are going to have a really good shot at radicalising them into some very weird and dangerous headspaces and in fact we see this happen all the time - think antivaxxers and TERFs. It flies under the radar because of the hazy positive glow that associates with motherhood and babies and also because we don't take the radicalisation of women seriously I guess because they rarely shoot anybody, but...yeah. It is such a vulnerable time!
#people who do not see themselves in the cishetero stereotype#are obviously going to have some separation from this & therefore protection#full confession: obviously in the last year and a half I have done a LOT of midnight Googling about Baby Things#and you know what. very often the top hits are Mumsnet forum threads#which...often contain useful and sympathetic advice#I can so easily see how people get sucked into that#they're not getting people with TERFy shit they're getting them with 'tips for getting your four month old to nap better'#which is the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD when your kid is four months old#and then the TERFy nonsense presumably comes later#because that's how radicalisation works
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stede bunnet
#no thoughts just ed and his emotional support bunny#i felt like a genius coming up with stede bunnet this better make you laugh#because im still giggling over it#praying that his name is anything close to this because i need it#fun fact my bunny who sadly passed away in 2020 looked exactly like the one ed adopts and it made me cry a bit seeing that scene#her name was soe and I changed my username for her#she was the most prcious baby she got me through all the hardships#so I believe stede bunnet can do that for ed too#ofmd#ofmd 2#our flag means death#our flag means death 2#ofmd fanart#edward teach#taika waititi#blackbeard#ofmd 2 fanart#my art#digital art
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Birds of a Feather previous / next
#my art#feralnette au#birds of a feather#long tags#sorry I went apeshit in the tags#LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW#I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO#its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical#and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread#as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational#in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away#and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do#shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again#legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it#but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings#alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird#she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her#knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself#between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot#and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo#essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that#busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way#to show her she's self sabotaging#cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD
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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.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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