#I hope this will age like milk

[toastyyjams]

farewell class 2006

[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.

[vero-niche]

can i just say how much i adore how Nao-chan's gender is treated so casually in skip to loafer

like, as a white cis woman who is also quite tall and havent read the manga i didnt even realize she was trans until this scene in ep2:

and i didnt even have the time to get nervous how they would handle this as they already moved on, ignoring the comments (just like queer people learn to do so) except for Mitsumi's comforting touch (implying she also heard the comments):

and there were no sad words or anything about this either, it was just handled so.... normally. which should not be something worth highlighting, but, well, you know. also on that note, special shoutout to P.A. Works for casting a woman as her voice actor as well.

she's shown being the supportive and lively aunt and like seconds later in this scene she's back to being her usual self again:

in conclusion

[thosewildcharms]

pov you are me several years ago innocently scrolling on this app. you see gifs of rick and michonne from the zombie show acting all cute chemistry noticeable in just moving images alone and you think okay fine. I will watch the zombie show if those two kiss. great news they kiss! you suffer through the zombie show just to see their love story and hope they don't die. fast forward both characters exit the mothership show, separated from each other on a massive cliffhanger. the promised conclusion of their storyline seems to be stuck in production hell and you are like oh no. all of that and this might end in limbo fml. BUT THEN. SIX YEARS LATER. you get an entire spinoff mini series that is entirely and specifically and exclusively about their EPIC LOVE STORY TM and btw it's executive produced by the leads who arguably ship it more than you do. oh oh AND the most critically acclaimed episode was written by the female lead who happens to be an accomplished award-winning playwrite. and it's apparently quote for the shippers unquote. I have never won like this before and I will never win like this ever again.

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

One of the reasons I believe a lot of people are so aggressively threatened, freaked out, and even offended by the concept of a gay or bi Mike is because then they’d have to face the fact that queer people are just people. Which, duh. Of course, they are! But Mike Wheeler, at least in the first season (and sorta the second season), is THE main character. He’s THE guy.

It’s what turned Finn Wolfhard into a heartthrob and fast-tracked him to starring roles in movies like It and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. For people who grew up loving 80s childhood adventure movies, on which the Duffers based their show, Mike Wheeler is Elliot from E.T. He’s Mikey from The Goonies. He’s Marty from Back to the Future. He’s Luke from A New Hope. In other words, he’s the kind of young sci-fi hero every boy dreamed of becoming. I mean, who wouldn’t want to find out that magic/the supernatural is real, go on an insane, life-changing adventure with their friends, stand up to bad guys, and fall in love with a girl with superpowers in the span of a week?!

Other than being nerdy/into D&D (which is honestly not that far from being a theatre kid, tbh)/hj, kinda melodramatic, and somewhat unathletic (affectionate), there’s nothing about Mike Wheeler that radiates gayness on the surface. Plus, he’s the protagonist! In Season 1 we experience most new things through his eyes. That makes him the audience surrogate character, so how can the audience surrogate character be (gasps) GAY?! That’s OBviously impossible. He’s just a guy. He’s just a dude. He’s just a person. He’s just the boy next door.

And if queer people are just people, then that means ANYONE could potentially be queer. Even your younger sister. Even your best friend, who has no stereotypically gay traits, plays football, and has a girlfriend. Even your children (gasps). Even you (am I gay quizzes? were born from fears like this). That’s terrifying for people who expect the world, and the media they consume, to be black-and-white.

People like boxes. They like things that are safe. Every time general audiences are introduced to a new character they fully assume the character is straight, even if they aren’t shown to have any interest in girls (like Will) unless they are an obvious stereotype, say the words, “I’m gay,” or explicitly make out with a boy (even then, some people will still try to claim they’re confused or simply “struggling with their sexuality”).

Kevin Keller from Riverdale. Kurt Hummel from Glee. Patrick in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (as much as I love that movie). Carlos in HSMTMTS. These are all characters that are Gay™️. They are almost always the comic relief sidekick, or the gay bestie for the main female character, or some variation of common tropes. Audiences (even homophobic ones) are increasingly used to seeing these types of characters on their screen, but a gay Mike Wheeler would be a different type of character entirely. 

“Mike being gay or bi would just be OUT OF NOWHERE and would be bad writing done just for woke points.” Okay. Aside from the fact that it would simply NOT be out of nowhere (gestures wildly at the Byler Proof Slides), let’s unpack the phrase “out of nowhere” for a second. Why is something only considered “out of nowhere” when it’s gay and never when it’s straight? Was it out of nowhere for Dustin to find a girlfriend while at camp? Is the resurrection of Stancy out of nowhere? And to the people who are still somehow convinced that Will Byers isn’t gay, just “maturing slower than his friends,” I guarantee you they wouldn’t call it “out of nowhere” for Will to suddenly have a female love interest, even though it clearly would be. They would encourage it, even if it was someone especially ridiculous like El, who is literally his sister, or Max, with whom he’s had almost no on-screen conversations. This is why you see people on TikTok and YouTube who genuinely believe Will’s painting is for the random girl he danced with at Snowball. Talk about out of nowhere!

“But Mike just isn’t gay. Don’t be delusional. Don’t be unrealistic. He is straight. He has only been shown to like El and has one of the most extreme cases of romantic tunnel vision in fiction I’ve ever seen.” Okay, let’s push aside the constant lip stares, the romantically charged conversations with his best friend, the fact that he can’t say or even write, “I love you” to his girlfriend, the ways the Duffers have consistently framed the Will/Mike/El dynamic with love triangle imagery and drawn our attention to this for the entire show, and more (gestures wildly at the Byler proof slides once more!!) for one second. 

The emphasis on “just isn’t” betrays them and their underlying perspectives. Let’s be clear. You can say Robin just isn’t straight because she’s been explicitly confirmed in show and out of show to be lesbian and into girls. You can say Will just isn’t straight because his sexuality has been all but confirmed as well. But you can’t say Mike “just isn’t” gay if the only concrete “proof” you have for this is his (turbulent) relationship with Eleven. Keep in mind. Without Vecna, we don’t have access to the innermost thoughts of any of the characters. All we have to go by is their actions, their words, and the intentional ways the Duffers have coded their characters. Ultimately, people who say this are saying that Mike Wheeler “just isn’t gay” because he doesn’t fit their pre-conceived, ignorant, myopic notions of what a gay person is. Mike “just can’t be” gay in these people’s minds because he hasn’t done any gay “actions,” whatever that even means (that’s why they believe Will- sweet, innocent Will- is a predator/homewrecker because they associate gayness with freakish deviance and see it as something inherently sexual, whereas if Will were a girl with the exact same feelings towards Mike, they’d never in a trillion years see it this way).

In both real life and in fiction, despite all the progress we’ve made as a society, straight is something you’re allowed to just be, by default, regardless of whether you’re dating someone. Gay is something you have to PROVE or “fall into,” and even then it’s treated with incredible suspicion (this is why people who ship Stobin believe Steve can “fix” Robin and make her into boys). Bisexuality is tragically either erased altogether, treated as a joke/a phase, or completely misunderstood (I heard someone say Mike could never be bi because he’d never date Will and El at the same time - what?! That’s not how bisexuality works). And comphet is something entirely baffling to straight audiences. You might as well be saying 2+2 equals armadillo. 

They’d rather believe that he’s just become an asshole, or that Finn Wolfhard has suddenly become a bad actor. Because accepting that Mike Wheeler isn’t straight means accepting that he can be the cool, brave, valiant, kind, caring protagonist of seasons 1 and 2, AND also be madly in love with his best friend. That feels like a bait-and-switch to some people because they don’t see queer people as “normal,” even if they claim they aren’t homophobic. They see queer people as “the other,” as something alien. [Insert Visibly Stereotypical Character Here] can be gay, not MY Mike Wheeler. He’s straight. STRAIGHT.  He’s madly in love with El. He and Will are just friends. JUST friends. Sound like someone?

That’s one of the reasons that Byler will be such powerful, meaningful, representation (aside from just being the only logical explanation for Mike’s weird actions). Byler becoming canon will give hope and provide a voice for the millions of LGBTQ+ kids out there who don’t fit a stereotype or society’s pre-conceived notions but who just happen to not be straight. Mike Wheeler will join Nick Nelson as one of the best LGBTQ+ teens EVER on screen. It will be a cultural reset. And it will hopefully open people’s minds to the beautiful tapestry of humanity. A love story so pure, so beautiful, and so overwhelming that the boy who tried so hard to be “normal” and to deny his feelings for his best friend and the boy who survived bullies, a week in a hellish alternate dimension, and a possession that took over his mind and body had no choice but to go crazy together.

[doodle-list]

✨ Manifesting for season 3 ✨

[coldninjaruins-blog]

People need to give more recognition and credit to the writers because, yes, Maya and Noah did an excellent job portraying Robin and Will and the struggles of being queer in the 80s but it was the writers who created these characters.

Robin's coming out was an amazing scene, Maya deserves all the praise in the world for it but it was the writers who wrote it.

Will was planned to be gay since the pitch.

It was the writers' and the Duffers' idea for Robin to be a lesbian (that it was Maya's idea was a misunderstanding).

Maybe the representation isn't perfect (that the word lesbian or gay isn't said out loud but f-slur it's in season 1) but the writers are trying, they care and that to me means a lot.

[charmwasjess]

You know, something I love about Star Wars is how vast and varied it is. There are so many different types of stories in it. You have the Skywalker family storyline, the tale of the Rebellion, clones stories like the Bad Batch, the whole Mando-verse and associated journeys those characters go on... Politicians, rebels, soldiers, smugglers, pirates, ordinary people. There's something for everyone. And there's the other side of that - not everything is going to be my favorite. I know that, and I'm glad even when a piece of content comes out and it's not my particular flavor, I can think hey, probably someone in this big weird place is enjoying it, that's good.

But this Acolyte shit??? THIS IS MY PERSONAL FUCKING MILKSHAKE RIGHT HERE AND I AM SLURPING THIS DOWN SLOPPY STYLE. Jedi stories?!??! Temple culture?!? Master and Padawan stuff?! BIG PILES OF SHINY WAVING LIGHTSABERS?! YES YES YES FINALLY!

Like this is the premium shit I go to Star Wars for. I just wanna see the space wizards hit each other with the glowing rods!!!! I just want to see it so bad, y'all.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

I don't want to be too negative and/or critical in this blog, but it irks me when people say Poppy Playtime's chapter 3 is perfect or that it's a masterpiece, because all I see are missed opportunities for a more meaningful story.

[we-love-morioh-cho]

No fucking way

Hello????? This is actually being openly acknowledged so early on???? I know Dragona turns him down but still????

[harukowitch]

I’m a sucker for crossovers and this is one of my favorites. One Piece x DC, Such an interesting concept! Robin, my beloved, I had to try to draw her.

Now her outfit is based on the dress she just bought in the last chapter. The first picture is my first attempt at the dress, it wasn’t until I actually decided to look up the the word ‘ruched’ (which I thought meant draped not puckered) for writing the alt text that I came up with the second design, which I think is closer to what they had in mind. Do I think I got it exactly right the second time around, no; but I at least had to try. I’m still glad I went back and did that redesign I like it so much better.

I didn’t add any jewelry because I honestly couldn’t think of what would look best.

There were a few other scenes that I could have honestly drawn but I couldn’t pass up her being a boss in a dress. I can not wait to see what happens at the gala.

Pose ref: @leteulteu or @jugsun61 on Twitter

[paeden-babyboiiii]

I was re-listening season one while waiting for the newest episode and when they were speaking with The Lance in episode one Darryl says:

“Henry, who would be scared of the doodler?”

And

…oh boy Darryl

you have no idea.

[derpiedoxie]

Alrrrighty, it’s gonna be new years soon

2022 sure has been a ride

I’m intrigued to see what 2023 has in store!

And to everyone,

I wish you all a happy new Year!

[sol-consort]

Illusive man has so much yandere potential my god-

He even has the AI spyware installed in your personal quarters, the captain's room.

He probably watches you sleep at night, like a creep while he does some other work or whatever, fucking love him.

God he spent so much money on you and probably gets off on the fact you're sleeping on the bed he bought you, wearing the clothes he picked for you, eating the food from the man he hired and flying in the ship he built specifically for you.

It's nor fat fetched to even think that he instructed your personal assistant to flirt with you because god fo they come off as super strong when you've just met them.

Weird power play? Sugar daddy with no sugar? A crush for superheros that grew into obsession? Who knows why he is the way he is or why his infatuation got him throwing money at your feet just to talk to you, keep tracks on you and constantly observe every detail he can.

Like at some point, it transcends being sexual and his very soul is fullfilled by your mere presence. You're like an exotic pet he has spent billions on for the perfect enclosure and bought you the best of toys to be your friends. Of course he doesn't care if you sleep with one of the crew, he hand picked them, not a single thing or person is on this ship without his deliberate approval.

And you keep talking to him, reporting to him after every good mission like a good little soldier. He keeps buying the right to call you Shepard instead of Commander, offering the highest of deals to match your prices a hundred times over. The right to send you messages constantly. The right to live as the biggest mystery you've ever know and like a curious rabbit you keep asking everyone he hires about him, and he keeps dangling that carrot of information just out of reach off your cute fingers.

He knows how it must frustrate you not to meet him one on one, not to be able to use your strong body to intimidate him, not be able to stare him down in real life. And the feeling of power it gives him to be sitting down on a chair while you're standing is so intoxicating.

[hyp3rfixation-h3ll]

i have been Considering. watching sgt frog again. bc i stopped at around 119 . and it is a very fun show. but The Horrors

[pisoprano]

Trick or treat!!

Why hello! Here, let me get you some candy! I’ve been saving this in my cupboard for… five or six years? That’s still good, right?

Oh, I remember like it was yesterday! Season 2 of the Ladybug show was starting to be released and our little fan community had come up with the idea of Chat Noir becoming akumatized—“Chat Blanc” we called him! Such a delightful idea! I wonder if the creators of the show ever learned about him…