#INSTEAD OF HELPING YOUR FRIEND

[uitzinnigmp3]

guys i dont think this season is that good anymore actually sorry

[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.

[lanavecorona]

today i offer you tmnt art. tomorrow???? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cerise-on-top]

König Teasing Reader in His Dialect

I finally got around to writing for König being sappy with his S/O in his native tongue! Native dialect, in fact!! I'm not gonna include any translations for this one! And don't bother putting it in Google Translate either, it won't work :3c

“Du host so a liabes Gschau.”

A gentle twilight it was, the sky donning a beautiful coat of orange. With the few fluffy clouds floating by, you watched your boyfriend glow in the soft evening light. It was almost magical, the way the sun set behind the mountains, the way it created a halo of utmost pulchritude on König. He was a rough man, who found it within himself to be as gentle as one would never imagine. His hands were calloused, but the way he caressed your face made it seem as though he was a lover by nature. Although he may have killed more people than you have ever known in your lifetime, that fact barely came to mind when his voice would call for you. Strong his accent, yes, but with it came a sense of familiarity that you would get nowhere else. König was a beautiful man. If you could have, then you would have knelt in front of him, allowing him to tread his fingers through your locks. If you could have, you would have slung your arms around him, burying yourself in his warmth and scent. But alas, all that came to mind was confusion. What did he say this time?

“You know my German isn’t that good just yet. You gotta be patient with me. Can you translate?”

With a certain glimmer in his eyes, he smiled as he shook his head. “No, I’ll let you figure this one out. It would be boring if I translated everything for you.” But even so, he walked towards you, quiet as a cat, hunting for its prey. All there was to devour was you, unity through the purpose of consuming one another. He stood still in front of you, eyes almost hazy as he seemed a little unfocused. He was a hunter, but whenever you were around he laid his weapon to rest, craving your attention more than he felt the bloodlust. You calmed him more than any restful night ever could. Your touch was the remedy for his loneliness, his fear, his anger. And this time, it was his turn to repay you, gently running his thumb across your cheek.

“Du bist mei ois. Für di leib i. I bin dir so vü schuidig. Söbst wenn i dir die Wöd gebn darad, warads ned genug. Danke für ois. Bitte bleib bei mir so laung wies nur geht. Hah, i reid grod so vü Scheiße, aba des stört mi ned. Du mochst mi so fertig, aber i hob di so lieb. Eigentlich wuid i heite schiacha zu dir sein, oba i kauns afoch ned. I bin so verliebt in di.”

Should you feel angry at him? For all you knew he could have been cursing you worse than any string of English words ever could. And yet, his expression betrayed him. That gentle smile, that soft gaze, that tender touch. König let out a content sigh, placing his hands atop your shoulders. It was evident he wanted something, he wanted more, but all he could do was stare as love overtook every fiber of his being. In that moment, he wasn’t a hunter, he wasn’t a fighter, he wasn’t a soldier. If there was one thing he could call himself, it was yours. Your boyfriend, your partner, your loved one. It didn’t matter as long as it was in relation to you. He pulled you into a tight embrace. His pride was a wall made of steel, but you burned yourself through the metal and settled down in his heart. All you knew was that he was so much kinder towards you than he gave himself credit for.

“Love, I’ve got no idea what you’re saying.”

“Brauchst a ned. I wü afoch nur so mit dir bleibn. I mechat di für imma so hoitn. Du bist so liab. I hob so vü Scheiße im Militär durchgmocht, oba es wor’s ma ois wert wal i di kennanglernt hob. I darad ois no amoi so mochn. Bitte sei ma ned bes, oba i glab es is gscheita wennst ned wast, wos i grod sog. Du suist mi ned als schwochn Maun sehn. Oba nur damit du’s wast, es gibt kan Menschn auf dera Wöd, den i liaba hob als di. I hoff, dass ma ewig zaumbleibm kennan.”

“Are you being sappy right now?”

But the only response you got was him holding onto you as though you were a beautiful, fleeting memory. Wrapping your arms around him in return, you resigned yourself to your fate. He could so very easily snap you in half, and yet he chose to use his strength to make you feel protected. Indeed, König was a different man with you. You knew him as the anxious colonel that was still capable of leading people. Deadly precise, viciously efficient, always successful. And today he felt as giddy as a child watching its first rainbow, all because he was with you.

“Ich hab dich ganz doll lieb.”

Finally, some words you could understand.

“Love you too, König.”

[mauvemischief]

Could I handle being known on the level that Andrew Joseph Minyard and Neil Abram Josten know one another? No, most certainly not. But does that stop me from craving a relationship like theirs on every possible level? No, never in a million years.

[sunderwight]

Thinking about the weird camaraderie that exists between demons but not angels in GO.

Have we ever seen two angels who are actually friends? Or even friendly to one another? We have met angels with a capacity to be friendly in general, but I think the closest we've come to two angels actually getting along would be Gabriel making a point to laugh at Sandalphon's terrible "can't have a war without War" line in S1.

Most scenes between the angels actually seem to have an undercurrent of absolute hostility. Teeth-clenched teamwork. No wonder it took them so long to notice that Aziraphale wasn't on the same page as the rest of them! The rest of them are barely on the same page as one another, either! When Gabriel goes against the majority vote, no one bats an eye at demoting him and wiping his memory. Michael and Uriel immediately begin vying for his job. The only times we've seen angels team up is when they're working together to bully someone else, like when they're trying to intimidate Aziraphale in S1 or going to the aftermath of the bookshop raid in S2.

Saraqael's overall neutrality towards Muriel is the closest we get to two angels in Heaven getting along, and it's more a lack of hostility than any kind of friendliness. At least until Gabriel loses his memories and Muriel shows up to spy on Aziraphale, and Aziraphale decides to be kind to both of them.

Demons, on the other hand, actually seem to form alliances and even friendships among one another. Hastur and Ligur are awful, but Hastur seems genuinely distraught over Ligur's death, not just fearful of suffering the same fate. Shax and Furfur conspire together and even though the 1940's investigation into Crowley's fraternizing doesn't work out for Furfur, it's not due to any double-crossing on Shax's part. Unlike the angels, who stick almost exclusively to making threats until the Metatron decides to try dangling a carrot at the end of the season, demons actually offer rewards to other demons when trying to work together. Beelzebub offers Crowley a promotion if he can bring them Gabriel, Furfur offers to back Shax up politically if she goes for the Duke position opening, and Crowley successfully stalls Hastur in S1 by pretending everything was a test and he's going to be put in charge of a legion as a reward for passing. They're still not great at socializing, but they're significantly ahead of the angels.

Of course, it's a fact that demons are awful to one another (Eric's treatment is really bad, they throw that random demon into holy water just to test it, "it'd be a funny world if demons went around trusting one another", etc) but they still seem more capable of forming friendships than the angels do.

I think that's because Hell cramps and crowds everyone together to try and increase their suffering and hostility, whereas Heaven isolates angels to decrease the odds of questioning or rebellion. Hell's methods are unpleasant, but it still ends up putting demons together, and some of those demons inevitably forge alliances and make friendships. Because as Crowley and Beelzebub demonstrate, demons are still social creatures with the capacity for love and affection, even if it's strongly discouraged and buried under nine million layers of trauma and a cultural mandate against kindness.

Angels are the same, but isolation makes is harder to form connections than overcrowding. Muriel and Jimbriel are both so eager to make friends, but Muriel's spent the past millennia shut in an empty office, and Gabriel has been distanced from his peers both through his position and also through Heaven's culture of fear and surveillance. He only breaks away from it when he finds something that's stronger than "choosing sides" (stronger than the fear of being rejected by Heaven and Falling, in fact strong enough that Falling seems worth it if he gets to be with someone he loves). Both Muriel and Gabriel are only able to start forming connections when they're away from Heaven.

I just think it's interesting that demons, despite being supposedly devoid of love, have an advantage in forming relationships compared to angels. Angels are supposed to love, but have far fewer opportunities to actually do so. Demons aren't supposed to love, but they make connections anyway.

[theloveinc]

There's a lot of validity in the idea that older Bakugo is a traumatized pro-hero with major PTSD... but you know what's kinda fucked up to think about? The fact that Bakugo is also a 22-year-old pro-hero with major PTSD even before that, too.

It's almost easy to imagine that things are actually better when he's older (the therapy finally a routine, the trauma long set and on the path to being healed)... and that it's his whole 20s that are spent as a pool of disaster trying to recover from the war(s).

He looks back and barely even remembers being twenty, much less twenty-five or twenty-seven. Barely remembers how little he slept, not at the hands of trying to balance hero work and getting a degree at the same time, but just out of the pure insomnia that came from trying to move on and every nightmare attached.

Hardly ever showering, never shaving (not that he ever grew much of a beard, but the facial hair was definitely there. There's pictures of him on the news with an awkward, grown out haircut and patches on facial hair that make him look positively... immature), barely even eating more than a few protein bars or an energy jelly drink-a day. It's a blur, and his friends are hardly there to pick him up out of it because they're all going through it, too. Somewhat.

It's definitely weird if you meet him during this period. He's not all there, at least, not all of the time. He doesn't really register your interactions, the friendship you extend to him (a younger, or ever older, version of him would've shown you that deep seeded ferocity in response, tried to bite the hand that fed him, even if it were love... but 20s Bakugo... doesn't seem to notice). Even though only one of his eyes is clouded over, the good one never seems to brighten up.

There's definitely moments when the old him shines through: when he's with Deku, when he's in the midst of battle, when he finds out that Todoroki still does a shitty job at chopping scallions. But it's a long time before he's even close to the same, able to step out from underneath the fog of simply surviving and into the sunshine of recovering.

But I think sticking through it with him is worth it.

(It's a weird moment, a happy moment, the first time you realize that Bakugo has changed. That the pouring rain outside hasn't bothered him since he showed up at your apartment. He forgot his umbrella, he's been quite careless ever since the war—wet and shaggy hair frizzed up, cheeks red from cold—but he doesn't seem to mind, with his bare feet up on your coffee table, his eyes gazing out the window. You hand his tea, and instead of gulping it down in one go, letting it burn in his throat, he winces at the heat.

"Tastes like shit," he says, and you laugh because it always does. Just this time, he noticed.)

[infinite-infinite-stars]

What if... Who Killed Markiplier... but it's Ace Attorney Investigations...

"Ace District Attorney Investigations", if you will.

(Everything you see here was drawn by me, with some backgrounds/that one evidence photo being either screenshots from the show, or edits of official photographs of Mythea Castle, where WKM was filmed)

[punkeropercyjackson]

'We need to get weirder about gender!!!'You guys can't even handle femme transmascs who don't wanna be called f*mboys,binary feminine trans women or fucking afab she/theys

[utilitycaster]

The thing about Imogen is that when someone else in Bells Hells talks about feeling wronged or insecure she is almost always one of the first people there to talk to them and to try to make them feel better about where they are, whether it's FCG's early struggles with personhood, or Fearne with her initial difficulties with her parents and later with Groon's side-eye, or Ashton following the shard, or Chetney after confessing his truth. Even though I frequently find her relationship with Laudna frustrating, Imogen is usually quick to ask Laudna how she's doing and try to help. There's so many small moments with her party members she's initiated that, if she ever let them blossom into their full potential, would lead to her becoming an unbelievably kind and understanding person. But then, almost every time, no matter what, instead of continuing these conversations and pursuing a deeper relationship and learning about other people's motivations through ongoing back-and-forth conversations, she's like "Okay! They seem to be doing better! Now, maybe if I open all their mail, I'll crack the code to why they sometimes do these things that are self-destructive or off-putting, and it will solve everything!"

[watcherintheweyr]

desperately need people to understand that alicent is a victim but she’s also an abuser and a perpetrator

that she actively makes choices to harm other women because of jealousy and envy and the greed deep in her bones because submitting to suffering didn’t get her what those women fight to grasp for themselves.

she is absolutely a victim, in show.

that doesn’t change that she abused rhaenyra and her children, her own son, most likely helaena given how she flinches every time her mother touches her, and is actively weaponizing the patriarchy of westeros against other women- rhaenyra primarily, but also mysaria and dyana.

she isn’t the moral, righteous force of good that even she thinks she is, she’s a wounded woman directing all of the rot, pain, and fury inside her at the wrong people and forces.

[twistedappletree]

Arranged marriage zhuiling AU where instead of being arranged to marry each other, Jiang Cheng keeps trying to set Jin Ling up with random girls from other clans after Jin Ling mentions he’s interested in marrying ‘someone’ because he doesn’t know Jin Ling meant Lan Sizhui, so Jin Ling keeps doing the most ridiculously annoying and unappealing things to scare off every girl who comes to Koi Tower and Jiang Cheng is ripping his hair out because you little brat, you said you wanted to get married???

Eventually, both of them are so exhausted from the miscommunication that Jiang Cheng investigates and finally finds out what’s wrong, then tells Jin Ling he has one more potential spouse for him to meet. Jin Ling is a pouting lackluster mess over it until his entire world stops when the doors to Koi Tower open and Lan Sizhui walks through.

[gynandromorph]

i don't get why people prioritize making sure scammers never get any money over actually helping people or even just. exhibiting basic empathy. damn, you fucked over a homeless woman but hey at least a hypothetical scammer didn't get your $5 bill. just in case.

[marclef]

hello there friends, tonight i present a very special gift to you......

it's the only Peppino clone i've never caused any harm to come to!! take him, he's yours now.

now be gentle with him, he's seen a lot. you wouldn't let anything bad happen to him.............. would you?

[faaun]

Jack Marsh (2005), Friendship Otherwise - Toward a Levinasian Description of Personal Friendship

[essskel]

I will always love Triss Merigold’s arc in the books because I remember so clearly in Blood of Elves thinking that she was on this somewhat predictable track of ‘purpose driven survivor/second chance hero/survivors guilt tragedy’ and I sort of ended up holding out hope/expectation that she was going to pull some deus ex machina move even all the way at the end after she’d failed everyone a hundred times over already (if not for the sake of her redemption then maybe her lingering care for Yen and Ciri).

But no! She doesn’t save anyone because she can’t and she was never going to. Shes a complacent centrist, she’s a ‘I thought i could change it from the inside’ dirtbag, she’s true apathy in contrast to a set of protagonists that berate themselves for their own falsely perceived apathy.

She’s frustrating to read without being a distraction or a weight to the plot, and I think that’s worth acknowledging, because most characters like her truly are just filler when you look under the surface. And maybe she is too, but it’s compelling regardless. The woman was dead the whole time - not as a ghost with unfinished business, but a corpse who’s got nothing to do but decay.

[ID: "Are you foretelling death?" shouted Triss. "Is that all you can do, foretell death? For everyone? Them, her...Me?"

"You? You are already dead, Fourteenth One. Everything in you has already died.” /end ID]

(Blood of Elves, ch3)