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.
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Prompt 175
Talon -William Cobb, that was his name once, he remembers that much at least- stares down blankly at the small child who is clinging to its -his His HIS- pant leg, tiny claws digging into the cloth and gripping onto the armor. It he freezes, unsure as to how to react. With Hunts or Orders, the talon knew exactly what to do. Entertain. Kill. Simple.
Talons were supposed to kill witnesses, he- IT knows this, especially as one of the oldest talons that belonged to the Court. Yet the talon hesitates, something stopping it from doing so. The child looks up at it, something oh so familiar about the motion, with blue-green eyes before burying their face against its- his?- leg.
“'̵m̸ ̵c̴o̷l̵d̸…” the child-chick… spoke? Not-spoke. Something else, familiar-yet-not. But cold, he knew that. Cold was bad, it meant sleep, not rest but a deep frozen sleep that took time to awaken from. A dangerous thing. A thing not-talons didn’t wake up from.
The chick -Hadn’t he had a child once, all that time ago- whined, bringing its-his attention back to them. Talon could wait to return to the Court for a few hours more- the task it had been given was already complete-and keep the Cold away from the tiny chick. Just for a little bit.
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Submitted Prompts #144
*shakes a bag of bird skulls I found in the woodsI and places it on your desk like it's a bag of gold*
I had an idea:
What if the Fenton parents are, in fact very competent Hunters, but they love their children more than their work?
Say the first shot Maddie ever fired at Phanton actually lands, and the scream he makes sounds too much like Danny's voice, to a point even with any ghostly distortion, his own still recognizes the voice.
I can see her pulling Jack to the side, making a ruckus about how the "darn ghost got away just as her blaster ran out of juice". Mostly as a way to get Danny her darling son to leave and go somewhere safe, while his parents have a whole breakdown in the GAV about their dead son.
And so begins the stealthy studies on how Phantom's "human disguise" works, the Revelation of Horrible Truth, keeping tabs on Danny's growth and revising their whole attitude on Ghosts to account for the fact that Danny himself is, at least in some part, a Ghost himself, but all he's done is live his life (and be the little hero Mom always said he'd grow up to be).
Jazz stumbles across his secret and is immediately pulled aside to join the secret "Protect the Baby Ghost" family group chat.
"And what about all the times they shot at him in canon" I hear you ask?
They're damn good shots, but while Maddie can train herself to aim just so that the shot misses just enough it looks like Phantom dodged it, Jack has the Fenton Bazooka outfitted with a tracking HUD that purposely fails to hit everyone's favorite Ghost Boy.
Danny picks up on that, but not on the fact that They Know.
And so begins the single most convoluted training arc ever.
Next time Skulker's in town, Phantom has become untouchable. Not a single shot or electrified net reaches it's target.
(The electrified weapons in particular send the Fentons into a rage when Sam and Tucker finally can't keep hiding it, and come clean about what happened, since the Fentons have proven themselves to be trustworthy)
When Red Huntress comes about, and Valerie Grey becomes barely a distant acquaintance after having only just now started becoming more than a friend, and with the GIW sniffing about, Maddie and Jack pull Danny to sit between them and finally tell him they know, and they want to prove that they'll love him just as much as before, whether Human or Ghost.
Danny breaks down in the safety of his family's love, and takes some time off as Phantom to help his parents establish a proper line of communication with the Ancients, considering they've kinda adopted themselves into the roles of Aunts and Uncles towards their little Ghostling.
Which is a good thing, because in Phantom's absence the GIW make a giant spectacle of destroying several houses while chasing some blob ghosts. They're chased out of town by brick, stone and metal bat.
Next time Red Huntress actually manages to hurt Danny, the Fentons pack up and leave. The Portal can be transported somewhere else. It can be rebuilt.
Their baby boy can't be rebuilt, no matter how much he likes to be a little shit and ignore Reality to quote Shakespeare at his own head (thank you Mr Lancer, for not giving up on him) or "give them a hand".
As Fenton takes the last tour of Amity, Phantom disappears. The Protal has been left seemingly unguarded.
The Ghosts decide to have one last hurrah in Anity Park before Danny closes the Portal, as per their deal. They won't hurt anyone, just cause chaos, but in return Phantom won't stop them. It's not like poor Red has the energy to chase them down, now that she's been "upgraded" into Amity's sole defender (the one time Lancer compares her new lack of sleep to Danny's, horrifying pieces start lining up too well in her mind)
The Fentons move out. Into a quiet farm neighbouring the land that belongs to the delightful couple that are the Kents, and their darling son, little Clark, who stares at Danny mildly horrified whenever he comes by to babysit, or help out with fixing the stubborn tractor. One day under Danny's clever hands, and Jonathan Kent's eagle-eyed gaze, and that damned tractor has never worked so well before. The boy's alright in the old man's eyes, and he makes sure they kid knows it.
After quiet rooftop admissions of one small boy's growing powers (I know Adult Clark is a brick house of a man, but what if he was a little twig while young) and the reveal of Something More Than Human from his honorary older brother, the course of Time sets into it's best version, and an Old Clock smiles, as Superman rises, only to be scolded by Spectre for recklessness.
(Dunno how well it came across, but I'm envisioning Valerie's feelings towards Danny to go from bitter resignation because she " had to" push him away, to horrified despair when the truth starts falling into place. He's her "the one that got away". And it's not like she gave him much of a reason to trust her with his secrets.
Maybe older and wiser Red Huntress gets invited to the Justice League, and has to deal with not just Fenton, but also Phantom flirting with her, after a good long conversation on how dumb they both were as kids, and a mutual vow of "I think I can do better now, and I want to prove it to you")
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So is the reason for Tyren getting more unhinged the side effects of the devotion necklace, or was this a downward spiral he would have gone done regardless of the necklace? I remember you talking about how the necklaces have consequences, and I'm curious if this is one of them.
Yeah!
Tyren would have been an already overly-doting and even jealous character on his own without the loyalty necklace, (and had been due to his crush on the Lamb even before recieving it, and what happens when you reject followers in-game) but his spiral into a unhealthy obsession and idolization was aided by the loyalty necklace.
If it was given to perhaps a regular, less devoted follower, the effects maybe wouldn't have had such severity. But Lamb got the materials/necklace from the mystic seller and isn't fully aware of the effects it might have on their followers yet.
So, dog is unhinged a bit on his own, but amplified by the necklace. He's originally friendly, caring and sweet. But you take good traits, too much of a good thing, and they can turn bad
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