if there's anything i've learned from the current state of social media it's that this is one of the worst possible notifications you can receive upon opening an app
calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.
let's face it, Obi-Wan is only a stickler for the rules in comparison to Anakin. this guy thought lightsaber nunchucks were cool as a teenager and jumping out of politicians windows was cool as an adult. he regularly sasses the chancellor of the republic. he saw Anakin and Padmé being super obvious and decided it was none of his business. he sits pussy facing the world in important meetings. hes's a lonely single in your area. he won one (1) fight against a sith lord and decided they were his speciality despite getting his ass handed to him by Dooku multiple times. he's annoying on purpose as a battle strategy. every man he meets desires him carnally and he doesn't notice. he puts one foot on Han Solos ship and is like "damn bitch you live like this" despite having spent 20 years in a desert hole. he gets himself killed to one-up Vader one last time. he's winning the idgaf war
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.
the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me
just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.
like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.
in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.
enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love.
i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.
hey idk which anxious pre-t babe needs to hear this but i didn't get to when i was younger so. testosterone will not make you ugly. it won't make you a horrible person. it won't 'mutilate' or ruin your body. if you want to go on testosterone then literally all that happens is it makes you really fucking hot and REALLY fucking happy.
The defintion of hell is knowing a show is incredibly well-received in its first season, but if people don’t become machines churning out tweets, content, and rewatching 24/7, there’s no likelihood it’ll get a chance to tell its whole story. This shit is madness. Shows in different genres shouldn’t have to pit-battle for dominance. First seasons are MEANT to be baselines establishing worlds and characters, not complete storylines. The idea that this golden age of television has turned into “get it done in one or get out” is revolting.
When someone really cool that I’ve followed for a while follows me back I feel like I have to be more normal with my posting habits for a bit because I don’t want to scare them away, as if they were a nervous horse who might run away if I move too suddenly. But eventually I realize that it’s impossible for me to be normal forever so I just go back to being weird regular annoying me and cross my fingers that they stay
when nimona first shapeshifted in front of gloreth, gloreth was a little freaked out, but more just shocked, and then they went on being friends. it was only once gloreth’s parents told her that nimona is a horrible monster that she finally turned on her. this movie isn’t subtle in the least with its themes, but i like this part of the movie because it really shows just how imaginary and baseless (for lack of a better way to phrase this) the fear of monsters (i.e. trans people) in society is. children, like gloreth, when left alone without any societal influences, will be faced with this Other, Different thing and accept it, just go with it. befriend them.